The Greatest Story Never Told
by Abel9210
Summary: A fledgling journalist with a middling career, an eagle called Samuel Swift, is tasked to write an investigative piece about the legendary criminal, Coral Tea, on his own time. The slight problem being that only a select few people really know anything about the legend, since most of the public is ignorant to her exploits, up to and including how she died in the first place.
1. DB Cooper Is Overrated Anyway

I timidly knocked on the door of my boss's office at nine in the morning. My palms were sweating even before I had it in mind to ask for a promotion, and I had nearly talked myself out of the idea several times already. I wasn't sure what I would do if this went sideways.

"Come in."

I opened the door to my boss's office. It was quite big, which was quite fitting for the woman who owned the Avalice Times. There was a glass curtain wall behind her desk with the blinds currently open, illuminating the office with sunlight. Aside from that, there was an assortment of objects; an art piece by a famous artist from Shuigang, a coffee pot, a flower vase beside the door and a whiteboard far off to the side. There was something overtly professional about the whole thing.

"Hello, Mr. Swift. What brings you here today?"

That was my boss, Ms. Sibyl, the albino komodo dragon, who was reading quite the expansive tome when I came in. She was quite attractive, but these weren't the kinds of thoughts you voiced when you really wanted a promotion from your boss. She was wearing a black suit and pants with a red shirt underneath, and her piercing red eyes were on me. We usually just called her Sibyl, and she didn't seem to mind too much. She gestured for me to sit down.

I shut the door behind me and sat down in the chair in front of me, trying not to visibly shake. If this was going to happen, I needed to make a good impression.

"H-hi, Ms. Sibyl-"

"Just Sibyl, if you please, Sam." She smiled a little.

"Sibyl. So, um, I was hoping to ask for a promotion."

Sibyl tilted her head and raised an eyebrow. "Do tell?"

"Well...I've been working at the Avalice Times for a year. In that time, I've never been late, I've done all my work before the deadlines, and I've been getting coffee for everyone I work with for the column. And by everyone, I mean something like twenty people. That's twenty different orders I have to memorize, and some of them get ridiculously long and all." I nearly cringed at that mini-tangent. "...the point is, I feel like my work is good enough for the big headline news and all, you know?"

Sibyl tilted her head again, then steepled her hands and closed her eyes. I tried my hardest not to chuckle nervously; I wasn't sure if that was a good sign.

It felt like an eternity had passed before she opened her eyes and spoke. In reality, it was something like a minute, but time had that funny way of stretching itself out to unbearable extremes when you were expecting something to happen.

"No."

I blinked twice. Did I mishear?

"Er, can you repeat that?"

"No. I'm sorry, Sam, but I can't grant you a promotion."

On the outside, I might have looked relatively normal, maybe a bit cracked. On the inside, I was screaming in horror while my one hope for today was being brutally murdered by a legion of dragons who didn't like the way I was looking at them, while someone somewhere said 'I told you so' and laughed at the trampled and battered corpse of my subconscious self, just before trampling it a bit more than was necessary and spitting on my corpse. Let's just say I was crushed and leave it at that.

Being the suave person I was, I decided to ask something.

"Uh, why not?"

Sibyl smiled sadly. "I have to be frank here. I think you lack initiative and quality. Your work is okay, but I'm not satisfied with 'okay'. I want good, and your work doesn't show signs of that compared to the major journalists I already have employed. And it always feels as if you're getting all your information second-hand, rather than going straight to the source."

By 'my work', she was referring to the tabloid journalism I was doing for a year. Tabloids weren't terribly interesting to me; it was mostly just small-time stuff. You know, park attractions, celebrity gossip, and seasonal events. It certainly wasn't what I expected to be doing when I graduated out of college with my journalism degree, but I had just stuck it out, hoping that it'd get better. It hadn't; I saw some of my co-workers start working on the headline news or investigative journalism pieces in mere weeks, perhaps a couple of months, while I was stuck in the same place. That was why I had asked for a promotion.

"Well, uh. Thank you for meeting with me, Sibyl." I offered my hand, and she shook it with both hands. Her touch was lukewarm and noticeably scaly, but not necessarily in a bad way.

I was halfway out the door when Sibyl called to me. "Sam?"

I turned to her. "Yes?"

"Don't feel discouraged. You'll get there someday."

"Yeah. I hope so." I shut the door and went back to the hustle and bustle of the Avalice Times.

Unfortunately too little, too late, but hey, she tried.

–

On a normal day, the Avalice Times was like a sentient machine. There was noise everywhere you turned your head, and people were always going from place to place to get something done, usually talking about the latest scoops or how to write a piece so it came off a certain way. It was a pleasant sort of noise, the kind you got used to and accepted as a normal part of life. But today, the noise and activity was starting to grate on me. It felt bad to get annoyed by the ambience of the office when it hadn't bothered me until now, but rational wasn't my strong suit about right now.

I trudged back to my desk in the tabloid section. It was comparatively quiet, and not for lack for trying; though the tabloid section's reputation for being gossip-happy was overblown, overblown didn't necessarily mean there wasn't some truth to it. The difference came from the fact that the people covering the real news rarely came around to the tabloid section to talk about news pieces and such, and vice versa. It wasn't bad blood, mind you-just a subconscious awkwardness about the different topics we tended to cover.

I sat at my desk. It was lightly cluttered with notes on my article for the upcoming Golden Week attractions. Golden Week was a week-long holiday starting on October 1, and Shang Tu promised to have a lot to offer during Golden Week. I'm not entirely sure I should bore you with the details. I'll make you a deal; let's pretend I did, and you are now highly enlightened about what to do during Golden Week.

Unfortunately, I had yet to start the article. So I picked up a pencil and started writing.

Or at least that was the intention. In reality, I just stared at the paper for quite a while, hating myself for the lack of work but finding it extremely hard to get started.

Five minutes later, I had just the headline and an opening sentence to show for my valiant efforts. I sighed heavily-I wasn't in the right mindset to be writing anything. I hated to admit it, but the denial of the promotion hit me much harder than I expected or acknowledged.

"Sup, Sam." A familiar gruff-sounding voice materialized just behind me.

I jolted in my seat. I didn't realize I had zoned out that hard.

"Wow, dude, this isn't a horror movie. Relax."

"Sorry, Barry. I've just been busy with stuff and...things."

I turned to face Barry. He was a brown bear who stood a head and a half taller than me and was wearing a striped button-down shirt and stonewashed jeans. He had a stupid yet endearing smile on his face like he always did, but he seemed concerned.

Remember when I was talking about my co-workers covering things bigger and better than the tabloid section? Yeah. Barry just happened to be one of them.

We were good friends still; he was one of the first people in the office to talk to me when I was but a rookie in the newspaper business, and we hit it off from there. Barry used to live in Shang Mu, but moved to Shang Tu because the cost of living was getting prohibitively high in Shang Mu and the journalistic opportunities just weren't showing up there.

Barry looked at my article, exaggerating the action for dramatic effect.

"Hmm. I don't know, man, I'm not seeing anyt-oh, wait. I see scribblings. Could it be...a headline...and a sentence?! Wow, you've managed to do more work here in one day than in an entire year! You're such a workaholic, man." The smile faded a bit. "Seriously, are you okay? You're looking a bit off today."

I grimaced. "Yeah, uh...about that?

Barry raised his eyebrows.

"Well, uh. I decided to gather up the courage and ask Sibyl for a promotion. Like, I've been doing the tabloids for a year by now, and I wanted a change."

"Judging by the fact you're still working in the tabloids, I take it that didn't work out."

"She just shot me down cold. Said I lacked initiative and quality."

"Oh man, that sucks."

I threw up a hand. "I don't know what to do from here. I didn't spend four years in college to end up working the tabloids, but I love working in the news. Just wish that..." I trailed off as a woman whose looks were all too familiar to me approached my desk.

"Hi, Sam. Hi, Barry."

I choked out a greeting while Barry just smiled and nodded, probably even doing it much more smoothly than I could manage on my best day.

Judith was a fox, both literally and metaphorically, who had just showed up out of nowhere six months ago and started working the headline news in just under a month and a half. She had red fur with white patches on her face and hands, and wore a green blouse and a long blue skirt that went past her legs. And she was at my desk. And talking to me...wait, us. Argh. What is wrong with me?

"So what are you guys up to?"

"Ah, we were just talking shop. Or we were, until Sam here laid eyes on you and his mind just went poof."

I shot Barry a glare. "My mind is working fine, thanks."

Judith chuckled and shook her head. "You guys are so silly together. Hey, Barry, are we still on track for the Magister's interview this week?"

"Yeah. It was a pain, but I managed to score us a meeting with him. Though, I hope you're a morning person, 'cause he won't see us any later than 6 in the morning tomorrow."

"The things we do for the headlines. Thanks for setting it up."

"Anything for you, Judy." He said it with that stupid smile again. I could swear it got wider somehow.

"Sam, what are you working on?"

I blinked. "Uh, I've been working on something for Golden Week. I haven't gotten past the first sentence, but it'll be good, I promise."

She smiled. "I'm looking forward to it." She checked her watch. "Sorry, I got a meeting I can't be late for. Coffee later, Barry?"

"Sure, why not?"

And in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

"She's totally into you, dude." Barry was nudging me with his shoulder.

"What? No, Barry, I got the impression she was way more into you. I mean, you guys already work together, and didn't she just ask you out for coffee?"

"Sam, I've been in relationships with several other girls before I came here. So when I say she's into you, I'm not just saying it to make you feel better about all the women you're conspicuously not dating right now."

"Hey, it's not like I don't have a love life! I dated in college, you know."

"You had one date in college, and that didn't even last more than a month. You just told me that a month ago."

"...I did? Uh, I mean..."

"Look, we're getting nowhere with this. The point is, Sibyl said that you didn't have initiative, right?"

"...Yeah?"

"So what I'm saying is, I think I'm seeing your problem already."

I blinked.

"Look, we both know that Judy is a stone cold fox...maybe not literally a stone cold fox, but you know what I mean. I'm the one that works with her, so I probably know that fact a bit better than you. But you know how I know she's into you? Every time we get together to talk, you always manage to make it into the conversations."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. Usually just stupid stuff like how you're doing, what your next article is, that sort of thing."

"So if she's interested in me, why isn't she talking to me more often?"

"Yeah, see, you just made my point for me. She's waiting for you to make the first move, you dummy. Problem is, you can only keep a woman waiting so long before she decides you're not interested in her and move on to the next best thing."

"But she drinks coffee with you…?"

"It's just a social kind of thing. Look, all I'm saying is, you gotta make the first move."

"But what if I just want to wait until the time is right?"

"Seriously?" Barry let out an exasperated breath. "You're hopeless, man. If you're not going to learn initiative with your love life, you can work on it with an article."

An article? "I'm listening."

"So I got this project kicking around in my mind, right? An investigative article about a legendary criminal called Coral Tea."

"That sounds like a stupid name."

"Maybe, but I've heard the Red Scarves practically worship that girl. Problem is, practically no one I've talked to knows any specifics about what she did, not even how she died, and since I've other things to do in the meantime, I can't pursue it effectively. You, on the other hand, probably have a billion hours of free time with the tabloids and all, so I'm passing on the torch to you."

"That's nice and all, but where am I supposed to start with this?"

"I'll give you my notes for the article in a bit." He checked his watch. "Wait, no, actually, you can get my notes from my desk. They're in the top drawer, in a folder called 'Experimental Projects'. I got to do something right now."

We bro-fisted each other.

"See you around, Sam."

In a few seconds, I was alone, and struck with the realization that I might have finally stumbled upon a solution to my middling journalistic career. So this Coral Tea was a legendary criminal, huh? No

matter. I would be the one to uncover the mystery of who she was, what she did and how she died. And the resulting article would be be so good that my promotion into big-time journalism would be all but guaranteed. Maybe I'd even get a Pulitzer and maybe the Magister himself would acknowledge my-

"Oi, Sam!"

Broken out of my reverie, I slowly turned to the source of the voice. Jim was a graying thirty-something raccoon who was notoriously lazy and had been working the tabloids much longer than I had; I think it was three years or something? He was a co-worker, but he never talked to me except to ask for this.

"Get me a coffee, will ya? I want it with three sugars, two creams, one vanilla pump, pumpkin spice and a pinch of milk. You're paying for it this time."

God dammit.


	2. It's A Brave New World, Sammy Boy

The rest of the day went by like a blur. I fetched coffee for several more of my co-workers and listened to them chat away about the dynamic trio, vacation spots and the possibility of a royal scandal. I worked on the Golden Week article when I wasn't busy, but my mind was someplace else. Take a wild guess what I was preoccupied with.

I got out of the office around four, just after submitting the article. The guys who worked the newspaper design would take this article, and many more like it, and attempt to fit it into the newspaper. The front-page articles would usually be big news that were expected to catch the attention of the passerby, and tabloid articles would be near the back of the paper.

That was hardly my concern, though. Right now, I just wanted to get home and figure out how to go about the article. So I went into the parking lot, greeted the attendant and hunted my car down. Two minutes later, I found it; an aquamarine blue five-seater that was gifted to me by my dad in my junior year of college. It was old back then, but technology had moved on; in two years, it was already conspicuously showing its age in the face of the newer models that not only went faster, but had significantly more features and just looked better than my car overall. I didn't mind too much, since my car got the job done, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a pang of jealousy and a burning hole in my wallet whenever someone zoomed by in a Shengbo.

Twenty minutes of driving later, I was in front of an apartment complex. Three stories high, it had been around for the better part of a century, and it showed. Despite the numerous renovations the landlord had commissioned, it looked really old, and not in a good way. The bricks of the complex were a rusty red with the mortar breaking off, the building number was fading and the gates that led inside the complex had the black paint of the bars already chipping off. It would never hit the top 100 list of 'Nicest Apartment Complexes To Live In', unfortunately; the only good parts were the cheap rent and close proximity to work.

I locked my car, then went inside. The interior was painted with a mix of red and yellow, with a set of flickering fluorescent lights in the ceiling. I scaled the steps to the second floor, then went all the way to the end of the hall to unlock the door to Apt. #210.

I locked the door behind me and took in my apartment for the billionth time; small bedroom, small living room, small kitchen, small everything. It was a fact that grated lightly on me-while it was not a terrible apartment by any means, and quite comfy in spite of how minuscule it felt, I found myself dreaming of a bigger and way cooler apartment so many times that it was getting old. I suppose that was why upwards mobility was a thing.

Standing around wasn't going to make my apartment magically cooler, though. I unzipped my jacket and left it hanging on my bedroom's doorknob, then put the folder on my bed and made my way to the kitchen for a quick snack. The walls were a drab white, the refrigerator and stove were practically in a romantic relationship with only the garbage can between them to keep it PG, the shelves were above my microwave, the sink and plate racks were sitting in a lonely corner of the kitchen and the floor was covered in plastic brown patterned tiles, with some already starting to discolor. I could've avoided this problem by buying real tiles for the kitchen, but these were expensive compared to the faux tiles I was buying. At least the faux tiles didn't threaten to break my wallet and permanently cripple it for life if I so much as looked at them funny.

I walked over to the refrigerator and opened the bottom door. It was filled with juice, a nearly empty half-gallon jug of milk, cheese and several other things. I groaned as I realized I would need to go to the grocery store sometime this week, as I was running low on stuff to eat. For the time being, though, I just wanted something that took next to zero effort to make.

I took out the milk, then reached for a cereal box-Shang Tu Charms, with a million marshmallows colored to represent the different elements of Metal, Water, Air, Fire and Earth, and some dragon mascot getting chased by a bunch of pandas-gently slammed them on the table, picked up a bowl, cup and spoon from the plate rack, poured the cereal in, then opened the milk and-

Oh for Avalice's sake are you kidding me right now?!

I gagged at the smell of rotten eggs and sour milk. Ugh. The milk was two and a half days past the expiration date. I hurriedly rushed to the sink and dumped the spoiled milk down the drain.

I glared at the bowl of cereal I had just filled up. Lamenting the waste of effort, I tossed the jug in the can, then grudgingly emptied the cereal back into the box and reluctantly placed the bowl and spoon back on the plate rack. A moment of silence passed as I mourned my cereal snack, and then I just fished out two slices of bread with some peanut butter and jelly.

Several minutes later, I dressed out of my jeans and patterned button-down shirt into sweats and a blank white shirt, then hung up my jacket properly and put my clothes in the closet. Then I gathered the notes from the folder and sat down at my desk to read them.

Barry's attention to detail was always surprising to me, considering how laid-back he usually acted. He had a list of people who might know something about this Coral Tea, with some names checked off to indicate who he had already talked to and a date next to the names. Several names were circled in red, presumably as high-priority people to interview: Lilac, Carol, Neera and Spade. These circled names had pictures taken from previous articles.

After that was a list of observations and questions based on who he had already talked to.

-Coral Tea: Died at age 20. Seems to have joined the Red Scarves as early as 10.

-Has a sister called Carol, age 12. May have joined the Scarves to follow in big sister's footsteps? Hard to track down; became a celebrity alongside Lilac, age 15, after saving Avalice, but somehow, no one knows where the kids live. May still be affiliated with Scarves?

-Coral had a bounty at the magistrate worth 10,000,000 crystals. Suspected crimes include grand theft auto, bribery of government officials, theft, planting evidence on crime scenes and aggressive jaywalking. Oddly enough, has no murder charges; perhaps worked as a fixer rather than an assassin? Or has no one found the bodies?

-A task force dedicated to finding and apprehending Coral was created roughly six months ago, and Neera was the captain of this task force in its last two months. Was disbanded shortly after unofficial news of her death and a body came to light. No autopsy was performed for reasons unknown, and the body has mysteriously disappeared. Coral was never mentioned by name in the news that did come out.

-Most of the Scarf members won't talk to me, including Spade, but the ones who did know next to nothing about what jobs she worked or how she died. However, the way they answer implies that Coral may be an unofficial patron saint of the Scarves.

-Whoever thought it was a good idea to name two wildcat siblings Carol and Coral is a bloody idiot.

I found myself chuckling at this last note. It had echoed my initial thoughts as well.

The notes were two years old, however. It was a safe bet that the circled names were still alive, if slightly aged.

Based on Barry's notes, I figured the best place to start would be interviewing Carol. Who better to tell the history of Coral Tea than her own sister? Even better, Carol might still be a Red Scarf member, and so would have intimate knowledge of Coral's jobs.

In the meantime, though, it had occurred to me that maybe I should have an internal codename for Coral; the name was already wearing on me and it was too easy to mix it up with Carol. I decided I might just call Coral 'Annie Oakley' for the time being.

–-

I quickly learned the hard way what 'hard to track down' meant in practice. I had went out around five with nothing more than a recorder, a notebook, a picture of Carol, the trusty Blue Beetle (my car) and a half-baked plan that boiled down to 'find out where Carol lives'.

I drove into the Shang Tu city square. The city square was the unofficial meeting point for a good number of Shang Tu's citizens, most notably because of the monolith at the center of the square. I was familiar with a pub there called the Roaring Dragon; Barry frequented that pub and invited me over for special occasions enough times that I knew the location by heart. If anyone knew anything about where to find Carol, I had a feeling I'd find something there.

The Roaring Dragon was filling up with customers around this time. It was somewhat old-timey, with light bulbs that cast an orange-yellow light on the pub, ceiling fans and greyscale picture frames of Shang Tu forty years ago. The owner had just installed several wide-screen TVs that were tuned to various channels; right now, one was playing a sports channel, one the news, and one a show about a detective duo solving crimes. The tables were occupied with twenty and thirty-somethings who had just came from work to eat, drink and talk with friends.

I walked up to the counter and took a seat, then knocked on the wood a few times. The bartender had come around with a smooth, easy smile on his face. He was a rabbit wearing a white apron, a t-shirt and jeans. He had come in six months ago to take over after the old bartender retired, and it hadn't taken very long for the regulars to warm up to him.

"Evening. What can I do you for?"

"I'm looking for information on where to find a girl."

"Everyone's looking for a girl, my friend."

I smiled a bit. "Yeah. But I'm looking for this girl called Carol Tea..." I procured Carol's picture from my notebook and pushed it towards the bartender.

He looked at it for a few seconds, then frowned.

"Don't think I can help you with that. I haven't been here too long, and none of the regulars know much about your girl, aside from the part where she helped  
saved the world alongside a dragon, a dog and an alien."

"Oh. Huh."

"Sorry, friend. Can I get you anything else in the meantime?"

"Yeah, actually, can you whip up a bacon cheeseburger? I'll be eating out."

The rabbit smiled. "Sure. Seventy crystals, please."

Ah, yes. Money. That's a thing.

I'm sure you're aware by now that the currency of Avalice is crystals. We switched to that from regular paper currency a while ago because for reasons I don't quite understand, crystals were extremely abundant and self-replicating (albeit needing special techniques to take advantage of that fact), thus eliminating the need for money printing machines. But crystals, as small as they are, were super inconvenient to carry around in bulk, as they just weighed your wallet down and started spilling out as soon as you put in more than twenty crystals. And contrary to popular belief, crystals didn't just float around in the air or on the floor for anyone to pick up willy-nilly. The Magister put a stop to that shortly after the Kingdom Vortex became a thing, sending out teams dedicated to finding every single crystal and offering to buy any claimed crystals from the citizens for a pretty penny. But how to spend money in Avalice without jumping through hoops?

The solution was currency sticks, or I guess 'crystal cards', and a baseline exchange rate of 10 crystals equaling $1 in the old paper currency. There were two types of cards; gray cards that had a flat amount of money stamped on them, and a personal card of any color (except gray) that allowed you to spend money directly from your bank account. These sticks had a few security measures to make sure it wasn't easy to simply steal them, but the most obvious and easy to explain measure was fingerprint confirmation whenever one made a transaction. Anything else was a bit more than I could explain in a way that made sense.

I slid a few grey cards towards the bartender. He took them, opened up the cashier and stuck the cards in the cashier, then disappeared into the kitchen. Several minutes later, he came back with my burger.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Take care, friend."

In the space of ten minutes, I was outside chewing over the disappointing lack of information while chewing on my burger. I figured that something might turn up soon enough; being a naive and unblooded journalist, I figured it should be easy.

Of course, I didn't anticipate how hard it'd be to find a fourteen year-old kid in Shang Tu.

First, I decided to procure the Yellow Pages and search for orphanages. I think I called about fifty different orphanages, and no one on the line had a girl by that name, nor could tell me anything about her whereabouts. It was a good thing that Shang Tu's payphones let you make up to ten calls per quarter, or I'd have spent something like 125 crystals. It may not seem like a lot, but the small things tend to add up.

Then I called the number for Social Services. I was met with a feminine voice.

"Hello. Who is speaking and how may I help you?"

"Hi, this is Samuel Swift, and I'm calling to see if you know the whereabouts of a girl named Carol Tea."

"May I ask what you need that information for, sir?"

"I'm a journalist working for the Avalice Times." Somehow, I got the feeling I wouldn't get results if I said I was a tabloid journalist. "I need to talk to her to set up an interview."

"Ah. What name did you say again?"

"Carol Tea."

"What species?"

"Wildcat."

"Alright. Please hold."

Five minutes later, I was met with a different, more masculine voice.

"I'm sorry, sir, we don't have any records for a girl by that name."

I suppressed a sigh. "Alright. Do you have anything on a dragon called Lilac?"

"Do you have a full name?"

"No, not really."

"I'll look regardless. But I wouldn't get my hopes up."

Fifteen minutes later, the feminine voice from earlier was talking to me.

"We have no records for the name you listed. I'm sorry, sir."

"…..that's all right. Thank you for your time."

"Have a good evening, Mr. Swift."

I reluctantly put the phone back into its receiver. I suppose it was a bit much to hope for; if Carol was a member of the Scarves, it was entirely possible she was off the bureaucratic grid.

Unfortunately, I had just wasted the better part of three hours calling numbers. So I did the next best thing.

I started bothering passerby to ask if they had seen a girl called Carol Tea at all. The responses I got were varied and colorful.

"Sorry, I don't know anyone by that name."

"I know about her, but I don't know where she lives."

"Go away."

"Can you buy me a beer?"

"I don't like cats. Cats are jerks."

"How dare you? You're a sick, sick man and you better get out of here before I report you to the authorities!"

You can judge for yourself if this search was fruitful.

I had set out at five to find a single fourteen year-old kid. It was now nine with a chill setting in, and I had wasted the better part of four hours with absolutely nothing to show for it. I sighed heavily and decided my time would be better served going home.

Not five minutes after I found my car, some jerk on a motorcycle almost crashed into my car trying to park on the sidewalk. He was wearing a helmet, a black shirt, a red scarf and shorts, and seemed a bit young to be riding a bike at nine in the evening. I was in a bit of a foul mood.

"Hey, watch where you're going, man!"

"Sorry!"

I balked. The voice was feminine, totally out of odds with who I thought was riding the bike. And on closer inspection, the person had green fur…

And then the person removed the helmet.

I was in shock for a few seconds. I double-checked the picture against the person's face, then triple-checked.

"Wait a second. Are you Carol Tea?"

"Yeah. Why?"

I blinked. "You're kidding me. I spend four hours looking for you, and you just show up out of nowhere? Unbelievable. Of all the things to happen..."

Carol had a puzzled look and a raised eyebrow on her face. "Uh, mister, what did you need me for?"

Oops. That might not have been the best first impression.

"Er, uh, I mean..." I laughed awkwardly and scratched my head. "I'm sorry, it's just been a long day for me. My name is Samuel Swift and I work for the Avalice Times. If it's not too inconvenient for you, I'd like to do an interview with you?" I smiled lamely.

I watched the slow transformation from puzzlement to excitement.

"Whoawhoawhoa wait, you want to do an interview with me?! Ohmigosh, I've been waiting for this moment forever!" Her eyes had gone starry, and I think there was a universe inside her eyeballs at that exact moment. "Juust you wait, Avalice! Your new star is here to tell you how she saved the world from a big stupid shrimp-looking alien called Brevon with her kung fu! And then think...they'll make movies out of me, every kid will want to be like me, and people will be telling my story for millions of billions of years to come!"

I chuckled uncomfortably. For someone who had helped saved the world, she was so unbelievably...teenage. And she was in her own world right now. I wasn't entirely sure if she was going to save that world, but I needed her in my world right now.

"...so are we on for the interview?"

I could swear I heard a snap as I broke Carol out of her reverie.

"Huh what? Oh. Yeah. Sure, why not? I can take you to the treehouse where me and Lilac live. And then you can ask me whatever you want." Her grin was all teeth.

"That sounds nice. I can't just leave my car here, though."

Carol scratched her head. "Oh. Then I can follow you to your house or something, then you can ride on my bike."

I wasn't all that keen on the idea, in truth. But I valued this interview more than I did my privacy in this moment.

I shrugged slowly. "Why not..."

–-

A hour and a half later, I had parked my car in front of the apartment complex, then I had taken a ride in Carol's bike. Let's just say that riding in a motorcycle was an entirely new experience, especially when the driver had no regard whatsoever for speed limits, and had no qualms about driving on the rooftops.

We had stopped just outside Shang Tu's city limits and were a few miles short from officially entering Dragon Valley. There was an honest to god treehouse just up ahead of us-I thought it was a joke then, but these kids were really living in a treehouse. It was hard to believe. How were they surviving on their own?

Carol opened up the kick stand for the bike and dismounted. I slowly got off the bike, trying not to puke.

"Well, this is it. You can take as long as you need to get started, Mr….wait, what was your name again?"

I grimaced. "Samuel Swift. You can just call me Sam."

"Whoa, Sam, you don't look so good. Why didn't you tell me this was your first time riding a bike?"

"I didn't realize I was taking a ride from a madwoman..."

She didn't seem to take offense. "Well, it's okay. Just lemme know when you're ready to go up."

Two minutes later, the sick feeling had subsided and I was climbing the ladder to the treehouse, just behind Carol. Carol opened the door, and I went inside.

The treehouse was much more furnished than I thought it would be on first glance. There was a TV set, a landline, a chair and a couch, several shelves that had a sundry of random objects on them, and a poster of a dragon with the sunrise behind it. It looked to be a two-room house, but it felt much bigger than my own apartment despite that.

"Looks pretty nice, huh, Sam? Hey, Lilac, Milla, we got a visitor!"

A few seconds had passed. Lilac had come out of the second room, yawning loudly and stretching. She had purple skin and long hair with two strands running down her face and gemstones in her hair, and was wearing a blue shirt with sweats. Milla followed, comparatively looking much more awake. She was wearing baggy green pants and a shirt that was several sizes too big for her.

"Ugh, Carol, you don't have to yell, I'm right here...and you came home really late...and.."

Her eyes focused on me.

"Wait, who's the guy, Carol?"

I grinned sheepishly. "Hi, my name is Samuel Swift, journalist for the Avalice Times. You can just call me Sam. I'm here to interview Carol...and I guess you as well?"

Milla sat on the ground. "You work for the newspaper? That's so cool!"

Lilac, on the other hand, seemed to have a moment of recognition.

"Your name is Samuel Swift, right? I think I recall that name from somewhere..."

"Yeah?"

And then Lilac's eyes flashed. "Now I remember. Aren't you a tabloid journalist?"

Carol was looking at me in shock, as if I had betrayed her somehow. Milla just tilted her head. And Lilac was looking at me with a darkness I really did not like.

"...yeah, actually, I am?"

"Ah, I see. So you're the kind of person who writes trashy rumor articles with totally made-up dialogue from people you haven't actually talked to, speculating about who's hooking up with who. I see how it is."

"Wait, no, I don't write these kinds of articles. Where are you getting this from?"

"That's even worse, then. You're not a real journalist, are you? You're just a paparazzi, here to take scandalous pictures for trashy magazines, then?"

"I..what?!"

Lilac was shaking her head. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't just boot you from the treehouse. I've had bad experiences with both hack journalists and paparazzo, and I'm not letting you come back with anything the trash mags can use!"

"Whoa, you're getting the wrong idea! I just came here to ask about a person called Coral Tea!"

The tension had been so thick you could cut it with a knife. But as soon as I said the words, several things happened.

Carol flinched and walked away to Lilac's side with a pained look on her face. Milla blinked. And Lilac had a hand to her mouth in shock. And I, a twenty-three year-old eagle with a stroke of luck, was dumbstruck at the reactions to Coral's name.

I wondered if Barry had ever had anything like this happen to him.


	3. No Such Thing As Bad Publicity

A tense minute had passed between my question and the shocked reactions of the girls.

I was considering saying something to break the silence before it got any more stifling. However, I was beaten to the punch.

"Who told you about that person?" Lilac asked pointedly.

I scratched my head, wondering how to answer.

"Well, a friend of mine told me."

"Why are you digging up ancient history?"

"Honestly? I just want to be a real journalist. I worked the tabloids for over a year and had to watch my co-workers get promotions while I was stuck in the same  
place. I just wanted the change of pace, and I figured this article would be the break I needed."

The girls had noticeably relaxed at the end of that statement. Carol had regained that crazy look in her eyes, Lilac had looked embarrassed about the whole thing, and  
Milla still had a confused, mildly vacant look on her face.

Lilac sighed. "I'm sorry about the trouble. It's just...well, Carol and I can answer any questions you have."

"Hey, Sam, are we still doing that exclusive interview? Do I get a million bucks and a TV show about me?" Carol's grin was all teeth.

Milla just looked back and forth between us. "Who's Coral Tea?"

Lilac and Carol blinked and turned to her, apparently realizing I wasn't the only one who had questions.

"Uh, we'll tell you everything after we're done here. But you should get some sleep, Milla. It's getting really late, okay?"

"Okay..."

I smiled awkwardly.

Fifteen minutes later, the recorder crackled to life as I hit the Record button. I had found a chair to sit on, and Lilac and Carol were sitting on the couch.

"Testing, testing...Alright, this is working...can you guys say your names for the tape?"

"Sash Lilac."

"Carol Tea reporting in!"

"Nice. Okay, just so you guys understand, you're anonymous sources unless you expressly want to be mentioned in the article. I can use anything on this tape unless you say it's off-limits. But otherwise, I just want you guys to feel comfortable answering questions. Understood?"

Lilac nodded, while Carol grinned gave two thumbs up.

"Let's start with some basic questions, then. What's the purpose of the Red Scarves?"

Lilac coughed. "Er, that's a bit complicated."

"It's okay, Lilac. Nobody's gonna hold it against us, ya know."

"Uh, okay...so the Red Scarves are a criminal organization. I suppose it's common knowledge by now, but they take on a variety of jobs; protection, recovery, assassination and so on. It wasn't like that before, though."

"How's that?"

"Well, when I joined, it was about helping people who couldn't help themselves. Like justice in places where the law couldn't reach comfortably. But over time, it just changed. Carol and I didn't like the change, so we got out."

...well, that put a damper on my theory that Carol was still a member of the Scarves.

"How did you two meet before?"

"Well, I helped her out from a bad spot, and we just hit it off from there."

"And what did you guys do in the Red Scarves?"

"Well, it's real simple, Sammy-sorry, can I call you Sammy?" Carol giggled a bit.

"I guess, but I-"

"Right. So me and Lilac were thieves at first. When we were in the Scarves, we joined a bunch of martial arts tournaments and made bank that way. It was just like in the movies, except we won every single time. We didn't have to do anything illegal otherwise. Spade was nice like that, at first. And the rest is history."

"Right. So who's Car-er, Coral Tea to both of you?"

Carol's eyes lit up, apparently ignoring that I had nearly mixed up their names. "Coral was the coolest Scarf that ever lived! She was my big sis, and she took care of me when I joined the Scarves. She wasn't around a lot because she was always on some kinda Scarf contract, but the times she wasn't on a contract were the best parts of my life! She even taught me how to drive a motorbike and everything."

I shuddered internally. The memory of Carol's insane driving was still fresh in my mind, and if Coral had taught her how to drive, that could only reflect on how absolutely mental that woman was when she was still alive.

"Coral was nice to both of us and she helped me build this treehouse, but she had that crazed look in her eyes every time you spoke to her. It felt like she was considering the best way to hurt you if you spoke out of turn to her. But she was the best operative in the Scarves, surpassing even Spade himself."

"Did she ever talk about her contracts?"

"That was one of the weird things about her," Carol said. "She was really nice, but she'd get all scary if you asked her what she did for the Scarves. And she basically never talked about what she did. But me and Lilac figured that she was doing work outside of the Three Kingdoms."

The world outside the Three Kingdoms wasn't well-documented in the media. I had never realized there were places outside of the Three Kingdoms until I got hired at the Avalice Times, and even then, what I knew could barely fill up a shot glass. I suppose one could consider these places, or the Outer Kingdoms, the third-world countries of Avalice-not much was known about them, and frankly, aside from the occasional Global Events article, the general public didn't care enough, even if the article was especially in-depth. This naturally meant that only a few people really wrote about the Outer Kingdoms.

"Interesting. How did you come to that conclusion?"

"Well," Lilac was saying, "there were rumors. They weren't really confirmed one way or another, but there were whispers. And sometimes Spade would just say he was going somewhere and leave for days, sometimes weeks, on end with Coral. I never gave much thought to it when I was still in the Scarves, but I suppose it might have been possible."

"Wait, so Spade and Coral teamed up on some contracts?"

"...I suppose you could say that..."

"Ughh, that jerk never kept his word when it came to protecting Coral! Every time they came back, Coral would look all beat up while Spade didn't even have a scratch on him. And every time, she'd just try to act really cool and say it was all fine. But I knew it wasn't fine 'cause sometimes she'd come back all covered in bandages and ignore everyone, then fall asleep in our clinic for a literal day. But then one day..."

Her voice was already tinged with bitterness with that outburst, but the way she trailed off was concerning, almost as if she was on the verge of tears.

"Carol, you don't have to do this if you don't want to." Lilac reached out tentatively, as if unsure whether it was okay, and then laid a hand on Carol's shoulder. They locked eyes for a second, and Carol grinned faintly.

"'s'alright, Lilac. I can do this. So one day, I got sick of it and confronted Coral while she was alone in the dojo. I demanded to know what she was doing outside the Three Kingdoms that was getting her so beat up that she needed a lot of hospital time. She tried to brush me off, but I wasn't having it, and I kind of yelled at her. I told her that this was worrying me sick and I needed to know what kind of stuff she was doing. I think I even tried to hold her down. It just kind of happened in a blur-one moment, I was talking to her, and the next, I was on the floor with a huge, stinging paw-sized welt on my face while she was telling me a bunch of stuff. She said that she didn't tell me things because she loved me and wanted to protect me, and it was really disrespectful to pry into her personal business, and stuff like that, and then she just left me on the floor of the dojo.

"And then the next day, Spade and Coral just left. Every day made me really itchy, like when you're waiting for a movie to just hurry up and come out, or when you're waiting on the microwave popcorn. But it wasn't a good kind of itchy. I couldn't even focus on anything, not even the really cool fighting movies. I asked around a lot, even though I knew no one knew anything or would say anything to me. Even Lilac was kind of antsy.

"We were like that for two long weeks. That's kind of funny to me...the worst part of my time in the Scarves wasn't when Spade went off the handle and started acting all mean and murdery and stuff. It was these two weeks where all I could think about was if my big sis was going to be okay.

"And then, finally, after these two weeks, I saw the shadow of a motorbike zooming towards the Scarves headquarters at like three in the morning. But the only person I saw on that bike was Spade himself, with bags under his eyes and looking all sad. So me and Lilac go out to meet him, and I ask him where Coral is. He just stared at me, like he wanted to say something but couldn't. But the way he looked at me, all pitiful instead of cool, said a lot more to me than his words could ever have said.

"I got really angry, and Lilac just looked really scary. We said a lot of things we couldn't take back that night. But the worst thing I remember saying to him was that he as good as murdered my big sister. And the reason I remember that is because as soon as I said that, he went from looking sad to...I guess you could say he looked like the boogeyman himself. Anyway, he called us both ungrateful leeches who'd never amount to nothing, that he didn't help us all these years to get paid back like this. And I swear he was considering hurting me for a couple seconds, but then just stalked off.

"It scared me then. But what scared me the most about that night was the cold, hard truth."

Tears were flowing freely from Carol's eyes.

"My sister never came home that night, Sam. She never came home..."

I pressed Stop on the recorder and averted my eyes as she cried in Lilac's arms. A tear threatened to escape my eye.

-

Several minutes later, Carol had fallen asleep on the couch. Lilac had laid out a blanket and a pillow, moving with the practiced ease of one who looked far older than she should have. It was easy to forget that I was only looking at a seventeen year-old girl in that moment.

When that was done, Lilac sighed and turned to me.

"I'm sorry about all of this, Sam. It's a really touchy subject for us. Honestly, I still don't know how I feel about the entire thing..."

"Eh. Don't worry about it. This is supposed to be my job, after all; finding the information and getting the tough answers. I'm sorry you guys had to go through that, though."

Lilac tilted her head and grimaced. "We've been through worse. Saving the world isn't something everyone can talk about, let alone boast about."

I chuckled. "I can imagine."

"So what's next for you after this?"

"Well, I was hoping to talk to a couple of other people. There's Spade, Neera, maybe the Magister himself. Basically anyone who knew Coral Tea personally. Then I guess we'll see what happens after that."

Lilac's eyes widened at my mention of Spade. "Wow. You say that like it's going to be easy."

I shrugged. "I've always been good at understatement, I suppose."

"I don't know, though. How are you going to talk to someone like Spade? The Scarves headquarters is really hard to break into, and no offense, but I don't think a  
couple of kind words is going to get you in the door. And then you have the Magister and Neera themselves?"

"Let me worry about that as I go. Let's say that doing things the correct way hasn't really gotten me any results so far, and I don't plan to start anytime soon."

"I hope you know what you're doing. I don't know about the royalty, but Spade was still kind of dangerous the last time I saw him. And the stuff you're getting into? Aren't you worried about bad publicity?"

I smiled. "No such thing as bad publicity in my line of work."

Lilac raised an eyebrow and shook her head. "I wish you luck on your article, then. Just try to stay safe, alright?"

She glanced at the clock then and gasped. "Omigosh, is it really three o'clock? I don't...oh man, it's too late for you to leave, but I don't have enough beds for four people...are you alright with sleeping on the floor?"

"Yeah, sure."

Lilac disappeared into the next room, presumably hunting for a spare blanket and pillow. I sighed out loud as I contemplated how much had happened in the space of a single night, including the fact I was apparently involved in an impromptu sleepover with a bunch of girls.

At least I didn't have to go to work tomorrow...


	4. Breaking In and Making Friends

The sky was a muted blue when I woke up, the sunlight soft on my face rather than harsh like it usually was. I groaned lightly as I rose from my makeshift bed, momentarily disoriented as I recalled that I fell asleep in a treehouse instead of my own apartment. I yawned and stretched out, then took a look around. It seemed like the girls were still sleeping, and at eleven in the morning on top of that. Saviors of the world with dark and secret pasts notwithstanding, I was extremely jealous of the kind of lifestyle that allowed them to sleep at such a late hour without worrying about being late to their jobs.

I debated whether it would be a good idea to wake anyone up. On one hand, it seemed kind of rude to interrupt someone's beauty sleep; I had been on the receiving end of too many such interruptions from my alarm clock to know how much it sucked. On the other hand, I needed a ride back home. I wouldn't be lying if I said I was antsy to make some headway on this article, even though I theoretically didn't have a time limit. Was this what every veteran journalist felt?

Pragmatism won out over politeness, so I steeled myself and walked over to the couch where Carol was sleeping. I reached out tentatively, then lightly touched her shoulder.

The reaction scared me. One second, she was snoring lightly with a contented cat smile on her face. The next, she had jolted out of her makeshift bed like a thunderbolt with her claws out, still wearing the cat smile, if a bit sharper and more toothy. I took two startled steps back, nearly tripping over my own sheets.

Carol looked at me quizzically, then at her raised claw, then at me.

"Oh jeez. Did I scare you? Sorry, it's just a reflex of sorts..."

I wasn't sure whether I should dignify that with an answer. Nodding seemed to work, since words failed me at this moment.

Carol retracted her claws, and then yawned loudly.

"Don't worry about it. I'm not going to claw your face off or anything, Sam...you should probably lower your hands or something..."

I blinked and looked at my hands. I didn't even realize I had raised them. I self-consciously lowered them and smiled nervously.

"Sorry about the whole thing. It's just, I need a ride home. And I also need to know where the Scarves HQ is."

Carol blinked twice. "Sure, sure...can I sleep for a bit longer first? I'm still kinda tired..."

"Sorry, but I want to get a headstart on this whole thing if I can."

"Alright, then. Let me just tell Lilac I'm going. She gets a bit scary if I go out without letting her know first."

A little over forty minutes later, I was dismounting from Carol's bike in front of my apartment building. The ride was surprisingly smoother and less nausea-inducing than it had been the first time. I wondered if she was concerned about my health, or if she was too tired to drive as recklessly as she did last night. The latter was a bit scary to think about, so I squashed that line of thinking before it escalated to nightmare scenarios.

"Thanks for the ride, Carol."

"It's nothing, really. You said you wanted to know where the Scarves HQ was?"

"Yeah, I was hoping to talk to Spade. I figure he should know something, since he apparently spent a lot of time with your sister."

Carol scoffed. "Yeah, sure, he'll talk to you, if he doesn't just kill you and dump you in a ditch first."

The sudden morbidity was staggering. "Uh, I'm sure it'll be fine?"

"Take it from me, Sam. Spade is mega dangerous. Last time me and Lilac saw him, he was still really mean and murdery, and that's when he was talking to the two people who could handle him. No offense and all, but you'd probably lose a fight to a wet kitten, let alone to Spade."

I shuddered internally, but I didn't want to look as if I wasn't confident about the meeting.

"I think you might be a bit cynical here. I just want to talk to the guy, not fight him."

"Are you like one hundred and ten percent sure about this?"

"Yeah?"

Carol stared at me for a few seconds before she spoke.

"If you're really serious about this, then I'll tell you. But you gotta promise you won't do anything stupid."

I smirked. "I solemnly swear that I will not do anything stupid and get myself killed. Cross my heart, probably hope not to die, and all that. Do you also want to do the pinky swear? 'Cause I can go for that if it makes you feel better."

Carol laughed. "Nah, you don't have to do that. You know the Magister's palace, right?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"After you reach that, you make a left and then just keep going straight until you hit a bunch of hills and an old, rickety bridge. You gotta go on foot the rest of the way after that."

"Alright, thanks. What are you going to be doing?"

"Eh, probably just fall asleep, then eat a bunch of stuff, maybe do a run in Dragon Valley. Don't worry about me, though. You still owe me that exclusive interview, Sam."

With that said, she revved up the bike, then popped a wheelie and did a 180.

"See you around, Sam!"

And she was gone before I could say anything. I could only wave at her fast disappearing silhouette.

Right, then. I knew where I needed to go. But I was hardly going to march up to the Scarves HQ with an empty stomach. The plan could be figured out when I actually got there and saw what I was dealing with.

I could swear the wind had just gotten stronger, though.

After taking a shower, it was now twelve in the afternoon. Fortunately, most diners that open around that hour were still serving breakfast. And I knew just the place.

I drove up to a diner called Archer's. It wasn't the best, as far as diners went. It was a small brick building that saw better upkeep than the apartment building I lived in, but it wasn't very impressive. It was a pretty drab building, actually; the most noticeable thing about the diner was the neon sign just over the entrance. Otherwise, it looked very similar to other buildings. It, however, was my favorite, because for a while, it was the only place I could really afford to eat breakfast at on a semi-consistent basis. And after a while, the employees tend to remember your face. That's always a perk.

I parked on the street, then walked inside. The interior had a cool, earthy feel to it; the floor was real, polished brown wood, as opposed to faux wood tiles. There were about thirty tables, fifteen on each side of the diner, and a serving booth with several stools in the middle. The diner also had fiber-glass windows. Right now, it was filling up with customers, and the buzz of chatter was abound in the air.

I sat at the service booth and waited patiently. The turtle behind the counter approached me.

"Afternoon, sir. Alone or in a group?"

"Alone."

He passed me a table buzzer. It said 12 on the bottom.

"When that lights up, you head to that table and a server will take your order. Enjoy."

It didn't take very long to be seated. I was already at table 12 in the span of two minutes, and a familiar bushy-tailed squirrel woman with a notepad, an apron and a pleasant look in her eyes had approached me in less than a minute.

"Good afternoon, Sam."

"Hi, Schera."

Remember when I said the employees would remember your name? As it so happened, Schera practically knew my name by heart after the first month or so of continuous patronage to Archer's. We became acquaintances, perhaps friends, and it was nice to see her around every so often.

Schera pretended to scrunch up her face in deep thought. "Let me see if I can remember...a bacon cheese omelette with a side of black coffee."

I smiled. "Yeah, that's it in one."

"Hah, I knew it! You should mix it up sometime, Sam. You're so predictable."

"What can I say? I'm a bit set in my ways."

Schera had finished writing out my order with a flourish. "So what's been going on with you lately? Still working the tabloids?"

I cringed internally."...uh, technically, yeah...but I've been working on an article since yesterday."

"You mean aside from that Golden Week thing that was in today's paper?"

"Yeah, basically."

Schera tilted her head. "What's it going to be about?"

"Ehh...let's say that I'm going to the headquarters of the Red Scarves to interview someone in the flesh."

Schera had a pleasant smile up to that point. She was now staring at me in utter shock, her eyes widening by the second.

"Wow. You sure know how to give a girl a surprise. Are you sure you'll be alright? I heard these guys were dangerous."

"Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Schera frowned. "You shouldn't act so tough, Sam. I need to go to work now, but if you go through with this, don't be afraid to ask for help. I mean it, okay?"

"I'll try not to get in too far over my head. I like the food here too much."

Schera looked at me for a long second, then smiled. "You're probably not going to listen to my advice anyway. But whatever you're working on, I hope I get to read it someday."

And with that, she had disappeared into the atmosphere of the fast filling diner, shooting one last glance at me.

On the outside, I was smiling lazily.

On the inside, I was starting to wonder if taking up the torch on Barry's project was a good idea, and if I wasn't already getting too far in over my head.

An hour and a half later, I walked out of the diner with a filled stomach, the pleasant aftertaste of coffee on my tongue, a whole host of potential questions I could ask Spade, and a cold, unpleasant feeling somewhere in my head that the mere act of asking questions might lead to getting hurt. Or worse.

I sat in my car for a while and pondered. Several different people had already warned me away from the Red Scarves. The ex-Scarves especially had painted a picture of a psychotic and murderous assassin who seemed to solve all his problems by reducing them to pink mist. That was not encouraging, to say the least.

Was this article really worth the possibility that I might get shot, stabbed, burned, electrocuted and pummeled to death just for even asking questions? I mean, sure, tabloid journalism was not even close to world-changing, and a scant few respected the profession, but at least it was safe. I could keep my safe paycheck and continue to do my safe writing of safe topics. And maybe languish in safety. And maybe it'd be all right.

But then I recalled what a year of tabloid journalism had got me; an underwhelmingly mediocre apartment that I constantly wished I could leave behind, pulling double duty as a coffee shop barista while I wrote about topics that didn't necessarily interest me, the hundreds of awkward moments where I had to sheepishly amend my profession to "tabloid journalist", and the fact that I had to cheap out on a lot of stuff just to keep my checkbook in the black.

Ever since I went to college, I had been plagued with a distinct lack of initiative, had been too afraid to take risks. I had missed out on a lot of opportunities and graduated with decent but not impressive grades. I had then shopped around for journalism jobs, only to be rejected because I just didn't carry myself with enough confidence. And even now, I was languishing in mediocrity at the Avalice Times.

All because I lacked initiative and quality.

A cool, tranquil feeling coursed through my body. I tried to figure out what it could possibly be for a few seconds, but it was indescribable; the only thing that came to mind was 'good'. I gave up on trying to define it, closed my eyes, took a deep, slow breath and let this feeling take over.

I opened my eyes.

This feeling...it felt like the howling gales of a hurricane and the fiery inferno of a burning building, all rolled up into one. But instead of painful like you'd expect, it was soothing, calming even. It was something I hadn't felt in a long while, and I welcomed its presence like an old friend.

It was a song of storm and fire.

It was determination.

I slammed my keys into the ignition and cranked it as far as it would go.

The engine roared to life. It may have been my imagination, but I could swear that it was the roar of the dragon.

In this moment, all my doubts had fallen away, one by one. It may have been temporary, but I just did not care right now.

I got my car on the street and zoomed away to the Scarves' base of operations.

Hell yeah. I was doing this.

The road leading to the Red Scarves' headquarters was long and winding, and also bumpy. Carol hadn't said anything about that part, which was annoying. I could only hope my car didn't get a flat.

In all, it took half an hour of driving through a largely rural area with only the sky and a few natural implements for company before I came to the rickety bridge. To my surprise, there was a literal five-story parking lot building not five feet away from the bridge. From where I was looking, it was packed to the brim with cars of all models, from cheap brands and poorly maintained cars to high-end, practically futuristic cars. I was feeling kind of lazy, as I did not want to start looking for a parking space, so I just left my car on the side of the road.

From there, it wasn't a very long walk across the hills.

I gaped when I saw the headquarters.

The Red Scarves' headquarters were absolutely massive. It was mostly steel and wood from where I was standing, a huge dissonance compared to the relative emptiness of the rural area. In some ways, it was like a fortress, reminiscent of all these terrible TV shows where the big bad was holed up in his massive castle because of reasons, but outclassing all of them in sheer scale.

I felt like the scrappy underdog protagonist who was gearing up for an epic fight against the big bad. Except that analogy sort of fell apart once you thought about it for more than a few seconds.

I shook my head and walked to the entrance. The entrance was a set of wooden double doors with studded metal...studs. But it was blocked by, of all things, a serving booth manned by a single person.

Something about that felt off, somehow. You had an infamous criminal organization who would gladly slit someone's throat for a price and clearly had the funds to afford such an extravagant base of operations. And yet, there was a serving booth with a sign that said 'Contracts here'. If you had changed the sign to "Lemonade for 5 crystals!", it wouldn't have looked any different from the typical lemonade stand business. The only difference was that they had apparently embraced their criminal side to such a degree that they just didn't care.

I approached the stand nervously, wondering what to expect. The person manning the booth was a salamander, dressed in a muted olive grey outfit with (of course) a literal red scarf draped across his neck. He seemed rather young, perhaps about Carol's age or a year older. He was absentmindedly sharpening a knife with a grinding stone, but upon seeing me, he stared at me without saying anything.

"Hi." I tried to sound confident, but I don't think I succeeded.

"An eagle, huh? What would you have us do?" The salamander seemed uninterested in me.

"Well, I'd like to talk to a member in your organization, a man called Spade."

The salamander rolled his eyes. "Welcome to the club. What about?"

"I want to talk about a person called Coral Tea."

The salamander stopped sharpening his knife for a split second, then grunted.

"You're aware there's a price, correct."

"Yeah. What do I need to pay?"

The salamander looked at me. "One million crystals."

I gagged. That was well over three times what I made in a year.

"You're...what? I don't...is that for real?"

The salamander laughed at me. It was a harsh kind of laugh, like a desert wind blowing across the land.

"I should've figured. You're just another bandwagoner. All of you are the same; you all want Spade to personally handle your contracts, but you don't want to actually fork over the cash."

"But...it's important for-"

He scoffed. "Am I talking to a broken record here? Of course your request is extra important, like all these poor saps that came before you. Problem is, we don't run a charity here. We're not going out of our way to rob a bank, open your mama's throat, get you contacts in the government or talk to a member here because you 'feel' it's important. Feelings don't do jack shit for our business, especially when we literally have better things to do with our time. So I'll make this real simple so we don't waste each other's time. Money talks, bullshit walks. Pay up, or piss off."

"I don't have the money-"

"Good. Now we understand each other. Piss off."

Evidently, you didn't get to be a Red Scarf by baking cookies and being nice to your mother.

I silently turned away and walked back to my car, replaying the situation over and over and wondering if there was anything I could've done differently.

I was in a sour mood after that rude awakening, and the waste of time didn't make it feel any better. I rolled back into Shang Tu around 3:30, and I suddenly desired food with a bit of alcohol. I spent about three hours in the Roaring Dragon eating, drinking and generally feeling like a failure, and it was around 7 when I got back home.

As always, I locked the car and walked into the apartment building. However, unlike last time, I didn't need the keys for the gate; it just opened on its own. I shrugged; perhaps the lock was broken this time and the owner had to fix it tomorrow. But despite this logical rationalization, something felt wrong about the entire thing.

Everything had felt the same, but I was on edge up until I got to my apartment. I unlocked the door, then closed it behind me and locked the door and sighed out loud. I didn't know what had made me feel this way, but if I had made it this far without anything bad happening, I suspected that I didn't need to be worried anymore. I flicked the lightswitch to the hallway and walked to the kitchen.

I was jolted out of my mind and nearly tripped over myself as I saw a panda man with blindingly emerald green eyes sitting in my kitchen, absentmindedly shuffling a deck of cards and being bored out of his mind.

"I was wondering how long it'd take for you to get home."

I tried to regain some composure. "How on Avalice did you get inside my house?!"

The panda man stared at me as if I had asked a stupid question. "You know very well how I got inside. You might be asking the wrong question here."

"Okay, you know what, screw your semantics. Who are you and why are you in my house?"

The panda smirked. "I heard from the guard that you were looking for me, something to do with a person called Coral Tea. Which is interesting, because it's been years since I've heard that name spoken. So I took out a contract on you."

The matter-of-fact way that he mentioned taking out a contract on me, as if he were talking about the weather, chilled me so hard that my body was visibly trembling.

"You-you're Spade?"

Spade stared at me with an eyebrow raised.

"I, I-d-do you wanna kill me? Is that what this is about?"

Spade shrugged nonchalantly.

"Don't worry too much about it. If I wanted you dead, we wouldn't be talking. Though, I did my research on you, Samuel Swift; you work for the Avalice Times as a tabloid journalist. The last person who was asking questions about Coral was a bear called Barry Allen, who also works for the Avalice Times. And according to the newspapers, he penned a duo article about the Magister's interview. Interesting stuff, by the way. I can only conclude that you two are friends, but what I don't understand is where you benefit from this. No offense, but judging from where you live, Coral's name is far, far above your pay grade, and there are less volatile subjects to cover. Why this one in particular?"

Why this one in particular, indeed…

"I honestly j-just wanted to make a name for myself. D-didn't like my job and all. What's it matter to you?"

"Have you spoken to Lilac and Carol?"

I blinked. Where did that even come from?

"...yes?"

"Are they doing all right?"

"Yeah, I guess. What's it to you?"

Spade smirked. There might have been a shadow of satisfaction in that smirk. "Good to know."

Spade stopped shuffling his cards and rose to his feet.

"I'll talk to you. But not here. We're heading back to the headquarters."

"Really? Just like that?"

"No. First, I'll knock you out. Then, I'll trash your place, make it look like a robbery."

My eyes widened. "What the-are you insane? No way I'm letting you trash my place on a whim!"

Spade sighed out loud. "That's why I wanted to knock you out first."

Then, in the blink of an eye, I went from indignant to stuck in a hold that I could not easily escape. I struggled to get out of it.

"Don't fight. It goes easier that way."

I fought anyway, out of stubbornness. But it took all of two seconds to realize that no matter what I did, I was screwed anyway. I blacked out in fifteen.

Now, Barry may be a good journalist. I respect him a lot. But I'm pretty sure he never got put in a sleeper hold trying to pursue a lead.


	5. I Got Knocked Out, Do The Title Yourself

I woke up to darkness, with a throbbing headache and a violated sense of balance. Also, every single part of my body ached.

I groaned heavily and groggily felt out a hand to get a sense of my surroundings. From what I could surmise, I was in an enclosed cage of sorts. Odd, though; most cages didn't have fuzz everywhere you touched.

And then out of nowhere, the 'cage' lurched. I banged my head squarely on the roof and cried out. In addition to the throbbing headache, I had what I was pretty sure was the beginnings of a huge, stinging Kingdom Stone-shaped lump on my head, on top of the sore limbs and the quiet, angry, screaming, burning realization that no matter what happened from here on out, one thing was for sure.

I needed a freaking pay raise.

And then another, more panicky, equally loud and significantly scarier realization came to mind.

I was in the trunk of a car.

And then suddenly, I recalled everything that had happened prior to presumably being dumped in the trunk of a car. Getting dropped off at home, eating breakfast, psyching myself up, driving up to the Scarf headquarters, getting denied, metaphorically drowning my sorrows at the Roaring Dragon with food and a few shots of alcohol.

Spade putting me in a sleeper hold.

I wish I could say that I played it cool, knew that screaming was no use and to just 'enjoy' the ride until I got to the Scarf headquarters. But as I'm sure you're aware by now, I'm no goddamn action hero with 500 pound muscles, zen-like calm from years of meditating on top of a mountain, godlike reflexes and snappy one-liners.

So, yes, I panicked. I yelled out for help and banged on the trunk door with my fists and feet. All I had was a vain hope that someone somewhere would do an action hero thing, like totally punching out Spade in an epic battle of strength and wills, then opening the trunk door with some cheesy but reassuring one-liner. Maybe they'd say 'I'm Luke Skywalker and I'm here to rescue you!'

What I instead got was the screeching sound of braking tires on concrete. Then several tense moments where nothing happened. Then the trunk opened, with Spade's bored face staring down at me.

"You're making too much noise. Keep it down, or I'll keep you down until we get here."

I was cowed into silence while the trunk closed.

I was silent for the rest of the trip.

Man, I am so awesome.

* * *

When we finally got there, I was gently lifted from the trunk, and then had a blindfold slapped over my eyes while I was forcibly led by the hand. All I could hear was someone laughing at something (an oddly reptilian laugh at that), and the general noise of a lot of things being punched and kicked and stabbed to death. Also, I could surmise from several of the reactions that people were greeting Spade because he was popular and super good at what he did. But I knew that already.

After what felt like five or ten minutes, I was sat down on a chair, something cool and metal. Then my hands were placed behind my back and I felt an audible click as something hard and metal was forced on my wrists. Then the shuffling of a chair. Then hands searching me all over for something, and seemingly finding it. And then the blindfold came off.

It took my eyes a while to adjust to the sudden burst of orange light. I was in an open, empty and wooden room, presumably somewhere deep inside the Scarves headquarters. From what I could see, it had been repurposed for something; there were mats on the ground for something, as well as some punching bags, wooden and blunted weapons on the racks, target boards and posters in some obscure but distinctly Avalician script.

Spade was looking at me, with my recorder in hand. He had a vaguely quizzical expression on his face.

"This is your recorder, correct."

I rolled my eyes and nodded, not exactly sure what Mr. Assassin Man was getting at.

"And you haven't changed the tape since then."

"I was planning to, but what with being out of the house all day and having a grade-A asshole break into my house and kidnap me, I didn't exactly get a chance to change out the tape."

"And this tape has your interview with Lilac and Carol on it."

"For Avalice's sakes, who frigging cares?"

Silence.

"Yeah, it's on there. What's the point of this again?"

Spade nodded and pressed Play, fast-forwarding through the tape until he apparently found what he was looking for. In all, it took about fifteen minutes, which was impressive considering that we were talking about three and a half hours worth of audio to sift through, and I was pretty sure Spade had never listened to that tape before.

The recording crackled lightly as Carol's voice resounded. This was the part where Carol monologued about waiting for Annie Oakley for two weeks. She described the long wait in a halting, near-tears tone of voice, which subtly shifted from halting to bitter when she got to the part where Spade came back alone.

"...Anyway, he called us both ungrateful leeches who'd never amount to nothing, that he didn't help us all these years to get paid back like this. And I swear he was considering hurting me for a couple seconds, but then just stalked off."

The recording abruptly cut off as Spade pressed Pause. Then you could hear the light whir of the tapes as it rewinded.

I sat there like that as he replayed the tape numerous times. A constant, never-ending stream of the same sound effects. Click, whirrr, click. Click, whirrr, click. Click, whirrr, click.

And all the while, Spade had a vaguely miserable look on his face, the kind you had to look really hard to see on a person's face. He absentmindedly replayed the parts where the dynamic duo had nothing good to say about him. It felt as if he were in his own world, and this room and I were vague blips on the radar, barely registering on his subconscious. It felt creepy and uncomfortable, but also melancholic and sorrowful. I was afraid to say anything to break him out of his reverie, in part because it scared me to think of how he would react, and in part because I didn't know what to say at all.

After what felt like an eternity, the clicks and whirrrs stopped, and Spade spoke, his voice almost a murmur with how quiet it was.

"After all this time, they still blame me for Coral's death..."

He wasn't crying. I'm pretty sure all his tears dried up a long time ago. But the slow, resigned way he said that sentence, coupled with the ever so noticeable emphasis on 'still', carried so much emotion that it was hard to not feel something.

I blinked slowly as I realized what Spade's deal was. Once upon a time, he cared about these kids like an older sibling watches out for the younger siblings. But one day, everything went wrong, and the kids blamed him for it. And then they left. And several years later, after his name was mud to them, he still cared about them, in a weird, unexplainable sort of way.

Never in my life have I ever thought I would feel bad for the guy who knocked me out and brought me to a strange place against my will.

* * *

Several minutes later, Spade had left and then returned to the chair with a blank tape inside my recorder, and the interview tape labeled "Lilac/Carol". Don't ask me why the Scarves apparently have blank tapes lying around, I'm still tied to a chair here.

I wet my lips before I asked him something.

"So, uh, why are you helping me? Not that I'm complaining, but I'm pretty sure you're about to tell me some really messed up stuff, and I'm not sure I'm seeing where the benefit is for you."

Spade stared at me for a long moment. I wondered if I had pissed him off.

Instead, he drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

"Are you aware of the concept of a non-disclosure agreement?"

I nodded.

"Tell me what it is, then."

Curious, I obliged. "Uh, a non-disclosure agreement is basically a thing where once you sign it, you're forbidden to talk about sensitive information and internal affairs. You probably wouldn't want everyone knowing the trade secrets of a company, or spoiling the details of a project long before it comes out."

Spade nodded. "When you become a Red Scarf, you sign an unofficial non-disclosure agreement by default. The only difference is, in a regular business, when you leave, people won't generally leak your history to the general public. They'll only talk about your work history at best. In the Scarves, you're either a Scarf for life or you leave disgraced. The Scarves take care of their own, but once you're out, you're hardly under their protection. They'll willingly release your personal information and mission history to the authorities, and from there, what happens, happens.

"I value the Red Scarves because they were the only ones who took me in when I had no one. I would gladly die for them. But despite that, the secrets weigh on you. They become too heavy to carry. And as well liked as I am within the Scarves, I am alone when it comes to personal matters. There is not a single soul within these walls that I could trust with my personal grievances who wouldn't think me treasonous. I can hardly spill my guts to random civilians, you excluded, because they simply wouldn't understand. And the two people I know who are alive in this world would rather fight me than talk to me.

"I suppose the benefit then would be this. For once in my life, I want to tell someone a tiny bit of the truth. I have done many terrible things in my time as a Scarf. I have killed an untold number of people and created as many orphans. I don't regret that one bit. But Coral's death...I made a promise to Coral's sister that I would keep her safe, no matter what happened. I failed to keep my promise, and Carol wants nothing to do with me. And that is the one thing I regret in this world."

Spade leaned in close to stare into my face. The light had hit him thus that he looked like a sallow skeleton instead of a panda. I gulped.

"Everything I have told you so far is off the record. If you print a single word of this, no matter where you go, no matter where you hide, no matter what names you take, I will find you, and I will end you."

Ironically, if there was any heat behind these words, I would have been much more reassured. But as always, it was stated matter of fact, in a cold, calculating tone of voice. It didn't fail to make me shudder.

He leaned back in his chair.

"Now then." He laid his thumb over the Record button. "I owe you the truth."

Click.

Several seconds passed.

"It started a little over two years ago. Coral was resting up from a previous contract. She always had an unbelievable amount of endurance, considering how little regard she had for her own life. It was my responsibility to keep her from pushing so hard that she killed herself, and I only barely succeeded. Regardless, the intermediary came three days after we finished up our previous contract.

"It was a simple job, or so we thought. Someone had stole an important object and fled to the Outer Kingdoms, and we were tasked to retrieve the object and bring in the thief, if possible. If not for the absurd amount of money, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. But while Coral was coiled like a spring and raring to go, that amount of money nagged me for the longest time. Why pay so much for a simple search-and-retrieve job?

"We flew out to the Outer Kingdoms at dawn. We were told only that the thief was hiding out on an island nation called Nam Dinh. Now, before the Kingdom Vortex came into being, the Outer Kingdoms had a massive energy problem. The Kingdom Stone gave the Three Kingdoms more or less unlimited clean energy, but it had started to fade in recent years. But at least we had clean energy. The Outer Kingdoms were far from the reach of the Kingdom Stone, and so were unable to use the clean energy to their advantage.

"It took a toll on their economy and business, to say the least. The waters were polluted with chemicals, and the streets and buildings had a very distinct run-down look to them. But despite all that, the basics were still in play; gather information, figure out the best plan of action, then execute.

"But we didn't need to do a lot of looking. As it turned out, the thief was the de-facto leader of Nam Dinh, and he had gone insane. I'm told that a long time ago, he was a tireless scientist who wanted nothing more than to give the Outer Kingdoms a viable source of clean energy. But something had broke him, and he had turned into a dictator who had lost sight of his original goal. Instead, he was bent on blowing the Three Kingdoms to kingdom come, with the object he had stolen from them.

"That contract made up the longest two weeks of my life. Instead of a simple search-and-retrieve, the focus had shifted into stopping a megalomaniac dictator who had a legitimate weapon of mass destruction. We fought almost non-stop against him, with only a few hours of rest between each of us. And finally, we came up with a way to destroy the WMD and stop him once and for all.

'The WMD had a glaring weak spot; if you flew a plane through that spot and it blew up, it would shut down the WMD for good. The problem was, there was no way to do so without also killing yourself in the process. And the only planes we could find was on a building several thousand feet high. I volunteered to do it, since at the time, I had nothing to lose. But Coral wouldn't have it. She wanted to be the one to sacrifice herself. I remember the last things she said.

" 'Spade, you know damn well I'm the best person for this job. You've been on so many missions with me, and you're the only one who knows so much about me. So you know that I'm not normal. I can't turn off my killer instinct, and it's killing me. You're the best damn handler I've ever had; you know my limits, and you've always kept me from killing myself. If you die here and I survive, I'll just find something to keep fighting until I either kill myself or there's nothing left to fight. It's going to consume me so much, and I can't do that to my own sister, Spade. Let me do this, and no matter what happens, you better watch out for Lilac and Carol.'

"I protested, told her that she was a fool, that she still had a lot to live for, that I wouldn't let her sacrifice herself. She went silent, and then quietly admitted I was right, shortly before she apologized, shoved a parachute into my arms and kicked me off. I was too shocked to do anything but scramble to fire the chute, and by then, it was too late.

"Coral had flown a plane into the WMD. It self-destructed and fell into the ocean. She saved the world, in addition to me. And it only took her life to do it.

"I was a wreck after that contract, professionalism be damned. I flew back to Shang Tu, collected the contract money, and drove back to the Scarf headquarters. Lilac and Carol were waiting outside, anxious to hear the news. But how do you tell a kid that you broke your promise in the end?

"I couldn't do it. Carol and Lilac got angry at me, perhaps rightfully so. A lot of things were said that night that couldn't be taken back. I lost my temper. I was wrong to do so, but it was like I became a different person and I had little control over my actions. And after they left, I had became a different person. I threw myself into the Scarf lifestyle so that I wouldn't have to think about anything. But that damn contract ate at me every day.

"Against regulations, I asked questions about the job. I wish I hadn't. That would have made things simpler. But I got answers that I couldn't come to terms with.

"The Magister was the one who commissioned the work for the weapon of mass destruction. And he was the one who sent the contract to the Red Scarves."

The recorder clicked as Spade pressed Stop.

I sat there with my mouth open.

Holy shit. That was messed up.

We sat there in silence for several minutes before the door burst open. A small red panda with crimson red royal clothes, a goofy hat and avaricious money-green eyes barged in, flanked by two featureless armored turtle guards who were carrying a large red chest between each other. The red panda was immediately familiar to me, and he was clearly pissed about something.

"What the hell, Spade?!"

Spade had rose from his chair. It was like he didn't just drop a huge bomb that screwed with everything I had known about Shang Tu. Instead, he had a false smile on his face.

"Good evening to you too, Zao."

Vitriol spilled from the mayor's mouth. "It's MAYOR Zao to you, you fricking half-blood bastard, and don't change the subject on me. What. The. Hell?!"

"I suspect you'll have to walk me through it."

The mayor growled out loud.

"Oh! You want to be walked through it. Like a nice, relaxing walk in the ARE YOU STUPID OR SOMETHING?! Did you not call me at four in the morning to ask me to smuggle in contraband from the Outer Kingdoms? Didn't you?!"

"I have a vague recollection of that phone call, yes."

I unwisely decided to interject. "Uh, should I even be-"

Zao stomped the ground and pointed at me. "Shut up! This doesn't concern you at all!"

His attention refocused instantly on Spade. "And did I not drop literally everything to fly out there because I owe Lord Spade a favor? Literally everything, dammit! I had a nice date with a smoking hot cougar who actually likes me for more than my money later tonight, and instead of dinner, I'm in the middle of frigging nowhere! Do you know how hard it is to find a woman that actually gives half a damn about me instead of my money?! I'd rather not have an heir by a crystal digger!"

Spade raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "Fascinating. I didn't realize you had a love life with anything except your money."

Zao's eyes widened. I could swear the money green eyes had tinted a shade of red.

"Fascinating? Fascinating?! Screw you! I spent the last seventeen hours flying back and forth from Shang Mu to the Outer Kingdoms, throwing around thousands of my hard-earned crystals to make sure these assholes actually do something instead of lounging around doing nothing! And you can't even be assed to meet me personally! I had to yell at a whole bunch of people before anyone would even say where you were! Do you even know how hard it is to do this on the down low? I could lose my job for this, Spade!"

"A great loss, I'm sure," Spade said in an insincere tone of voice.

Zao threw his hands up and angrily pointed at him, using his finger to punctuate for emphasis.

"You know what? You better be paying me fat stacks of crystals or I swear on my mother, I will take a hammer to this piece of crap place and bring it all crumbling down on your head! You hear me?!"

Spade chuckled lightly and smiled.

"Show me the goods first, and then we can discuss compensation."

Zao gestured wildly to the guards. "Hey, assholes! Get over here!"

The guards looked at each other for a few seconds, then shrugged and resigned themselves to the task of lugging the chest over to Zao and Spade, then unlocking it. Several clicks later, the chest unraveled into several shelves that neatly displayed each piece, and had pockets on the sides to store things that I couldn't see from my chair. I let my mouth fall open as I realized what I was looking at.

Guns. Spade had just asked Mayor Zao to smuggle in guns. I had heard of such things from the Outer Kingdoms, but this was my first time seeing them up close. I broke out in a sweat; a half-remembered declaration several years ago came to mind. The Magister had expressly banned guns and blasters for sale, making it so that only law enforcement and security were allowed to carry blasters. This had extended into the other kingdoms of Shang Mu and Shuigang. Most of the people, politicians and general public alike, in Shang Tu, Shang Mu and Shuigang had no idea what a gun looked like.

Spade picked up a small gun and inspected it. It was a combined wood and metal affair, hardly impressive-looking on its own. It had a spike at the bottom and two arrow-like things sticking out upwards from the base of the gun.

Mayor Zao shook his head. "Seriously, Spade, I have no idea why you asked specifically for these...things. They're so small, and blasters already exist. Or you could just throw cards at people. Isn't that your thing?"

"Not reliable enough."

Spade ignored Zao after that statement. Instead, he gathered a lead ball, a marked powder pouch, a bottle of liquid and a piece of paper from the chest pockets, then took out the metal spike and idly worked on the gun. A tense minute passed where the only things you could hear were Zao's impatient foot-taps on the floor and the muted sounds of Spade prepping the gun. Finally, Spade made a satisfied noise, pulled back one of the arrow-like things—the hammer?-and pointed at the target board with one hand, then pulled the trigger slowly. It went off with a loud bang and a lot of smoke that startled both the mayor and I, and there was a small gaping hole right in the middle of the target board. Bulls-eye.

Zao was stammering. "Wh-wh-what the hell was that?!"

Spade blew the smoke from the barrel and grinned, saying nothing in all his smug glory.

Zao's mouth was gaping open while Spade carefully placed the gun back on the chest rack.

"It works like a charm. Loading time leaves a lot to be desired, but I'll have to distribute these out to the senior Scarves, make sure the apprentices are taught how to use a gun properly," he said, speaking mostly to himself.

He turned to Zao. "As for your compensation...I believe fifty million crystals will suffice for tonight. It'll be wired to your bank account as soon as possible."

And here I thought crime didn't pay. Damn you, grade school morality.

Zao blinked rapidly and nodded. His irises had disappeared; in their place were white circles with black outlines. "...yeah...sure…"

And then something akin to a light bulb went off over Zao's head. Coincidentally, his eyes had returned at about the same time.

He walked over to me. We were eye-level despite that I was tied to a chair. I was confident that I had at least two feet on Zao while standing.

"You there. What are you even doing here?"

"Uh..."

Spade shook his head at me. I ignored him.

"My name is Samuel Swift, and I'm a journalist for the-"

Zao's eyes widened. I could swear that his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets."Wait. What did you just say?"

Spade sighed and lightly smacked his hand against his head.

"Uh. I'm a journalist?" I smiled awkwardly.

Zao slowly, slowly turned to Spade, murder in his eyes.

"Are you telling me that this entire time, a journalist, a frigging journalist, has been in this room, sitting here, listening to us, and he saw this entire deal go down?"

Spade shrugged. "I would've introduced you to him, but you seemed a bit too worked up."

Zao laughed out loud for several seconds while Spade, the guards and I sat there impassively.

Then the laughter stopped. What then followed was the most impressive string of expletives I have ever heard a person scream out in my life. I cringed out loud at the volume and the fact at several points, he effortlessly transitioned from Avalician to a Shang Mu dialect that I had never heard before in my life. Spade just raised an eyebrow and seemed to be suppressing laughter, which was hilarious in retrospect.

A minute of this passed, and the mayor huffed and puffed before he launched into another tirade.

"Dammit, Spade! You know how much I hate journalists! They're all nasty, thieving assholes that aren't happy until they're finished digging into every single thing you've ever done! So what if I have money?! I came from nothing, a poor family, and everyone shat all over me for not having money! Now I have money and I'm not free to spend it as I wish in this damn world?! And you let me do a deal in front of a journalist?! What the hell is wrong with you?"

Because for some reason, I had a knack for opening my mouth at bad times, I decided to interject.

"Uh, I'm only a tabloid journ-"

"I DON'T CARE! All you damn journalists are all the damn same!"

Suddenly, I had a very good idea of why Barry moved out of Shang Mu.

Zao angrily paced around, making angry noises. Finally, he marched up to Spade.

"We have to waste him. I cannot risk any of this getting out. I need my damn job, Spade!"

Spade looked down at him and shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Spade walked over to the chest, looked around the bottom shelf and apparently found what he was looking for; yet another gun that didn't look very different from the one he was brandishing not long ago. Something about it struck me as false-looking, though I had no idea why. There was a piece of paper attached to it. Spade tore it off and crumpled the paper, then offered the gun to Zao.

"Use this one. All you have to do is point at him and pull the trigger."

Zao laughed derisively. "Me? Are you serious? Do I look like an idiot?"

His gaze shifted from Spade to the guards. "Hey, dumbasses! Whoever wastes this asshole gets a 5% pay raise!"

The guards once again traded uncomfortable looks between each other. One of them stepped forward, speaking in a slow, drawling and uncertain voice.

"I don't think this is a good idea, sir."

Zao's eye twitched.

"I didn't hire you so you could look pretty or 'think', you blithering moron! I hired you so you could follow orders. This is an order. Are you saying you're disobeying my orders?"

There was a long moment. "No, sir."

"Good! So what's the problem?"

"No problem, sir." I could swear he waited a half-second longer to append that honorific than he needed to.

Zao laughed joyously while Spade shrugged and handed the gun to the guard. That was unsettling.

Then they marched up to my chair. That was scary.

The guard pointed the gun at me. I was staring down the barrel.

Zao put his face up against mine. He was enjoying this too much for his own good.

"Any last words, punk?"

Panic took over, and I struggled against my bonds.

"Oh please, don't kill me! I have a family!"

Zao shrugged, having the audacity to look disappointed. "Whatever. Can we get this over with?"

I was fairly certain I was about to die here, to the frigging Mayor Zao of all people, because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They say that just before you die, your life literally flashes before your eyes. I wasn't sure about that, but what did run through my head was a couple of things, most of them really stupid.

I would never be able to eat out at the Roaring Dragon again.

I would never be able to watch cheesy TV shows.

I had never gotten to try out bacon-flavored ale.

I'd never get to publish my article about Coral Tea.

Oh man.

The trigger clicked. I shut my eyes hard at the fatal moment, imagining a small piece of lead going through my head.

A loud, explosive BANG permeated my senses.

* * *

An agonizing second had passed. Then two. Then three.

I didn't feel any different from three seconds ago.

I experimentally decided to open one eye. That one worked. Then I opened the other.

I blinked twice as I realized that I was still alive.

Mayor Zao was flabbergasted, while the guard looked puzzled but relieved. He turned the gun to its side.

There was a red flag that said "BANG!" in explosive yellow comic-book text, its pole protruding from the barrel.

Spade had looked like he was trying to suppress laughter before. But now he was genuinely laughing. The sound was foreign to me. I didn't think Mr. Assassin Man was even capable of the simple act of laughter. It confused me greatly. And confusion turned to indignation.

Zao turned to him angrily, while the guard looked at Spade with a bemused expression.

"You stupid son of a BITCH! This isn't funny!"

Despite that he had just ordered my assassination literal seconds ago, I found myself vigorously agreeing with Mayor Zao.

Spade had gotten himself under control remarkably fast.

"My sincerest apologies, but I didn't see the point in taking him out."

Zao's voice had increased by about two pitches or so. "B-but-the dealllll! The everythiiiing!"

"Calm down, Zao. If he becomes a problem, I'll take care of him personally. But right now, he and I have an understanding."

I wisely decided to keep my mouth shut this time around. I wasn't comfortable with the casual way he mentioned 'taking care of me', but I valued my life much more than semantics right now.

"Arghwhatingasdsadgrrrr I'm getting the hell out of here! Screw you, Spade. I hope you die a fiery, painful, long, slow death."

"Good night to you too, Zao."

Zao balled up a fist, then thought better of it and stalked off in a rage. The guard who had just stayed behind to watch the 'spectacle' nodded to me and followed after Zao.

The guy holding the false gun spoke to me in that same slow, drawling voice.

"Sorry. The mayor is...impulsive. No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," I half-lied. In truth, I was feeling resentful, but only a little of it was directed at the guy who had pulled the trigger. He was just doing his job, after all.

The guard nodded and placed the gun on the floor, then left.

Spade walked over to my chair and unlocked my cuffs, then picked up the gun and stuffed it down one of his pockets. I groaned as the pressure was lifted off my wrists and the pain of having my arms stuck in the same position for hours on end kicked in. I rubbed my wrists vigorously, half-remembering that it was supposed to restore circulation.

"Apologies, but it had to play out this way so Zao would feel like he had power."

"Whatever, man. Why in the hell do you have a fake gun in that chest, of all the things you could've asked for?"

Spade put on a false smile. "It was a gift."

I rolled my eyes. "Last time I checked, a gift was like chocolates or a book, not a frigging real-looking gun. You got a real warped definition of a 'gift', you know?"

Spade ignored that comment. "You're free to go. I'll be giving you a ride back to your place."

"...lemme guess, you're going to blindfold me first and stuff me in the trunk."

"Yes, that's right."

I rolled my eyes so hard and sighed out loud at that statement.

"Also, I meant what I said before. If you become a problem, I know where you live. And as much as I think I like your pluck, make no mistake about it; I will end you. No hard feelings."

"Yeah. Thanks," I said with maybe a trace of vitriol. "This is making me feel so much better right now."

"It's just professional courtesy."

"I bet you say that to all the people you've literally ended before."

Spade shrugged. "Suit yourself. Just don't get yourself killed first."

I took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. I had regained some feeling in my arms.

"Hey, Spade."

"Yes?"

I rose up slowly from the chair, turned to face him, and then punched the panda man square in the face.

My right fist exploded into a sensation of pain. I grimaced really hard. No one had ever told me that punching people in the face hurt so much.

Through the pain, I gritted out words.

"That's for knocking me out, trashing my place, stuffing me in a trunk, and almost getting me killed with that stupid stunt you pulled."

The asshole didn't even looked fazed by the punch. He drew in a breath.

"I suppose I deserved that. Though, if you're going to punch someone in the face without protecting your fists first, you want to aim for just above the jaw. Hurts less and does more damage."

He nodded to my fist. "Lay off it for a few, then put ice on it when you get home."

Then, Spade stuffed my recorder and interview tape down my pocket, and in another motion, slapped another blindfold over my eyes.

"By the way, we're even. Best of luck with the article."

Dick.


	6. Person of Interest

It was nearing midnight when the trunk opened and I slowly climbed out. I felt especially sluggish after all the excitement had died down and the only things I had for company were the occasional bumps on the road and the dull throbbing of my right hand.

Spade just watched me with academic boredom.

"Would you like some help walking to your apartment?"

I turned to him slowly, pondering the request. On one hand, it was nice of him to even offer, considering that only hours ago, I had built up an image of a ruthless and murderous person. Heck, maybe it wouldn't be that bad.

But on the other hand, there was the matter of my wounded pride. I wasn't in a forgiving sort of mood after all the excitement of today.

"Hell no. I'll be fine on my own."

Spade shrugged and walked back to the car. In seconds, he was already speeding off to Avalice knows where.

I felt a pang of regret for the blunt dismissal, despite myself. I stumbled over to the gate of my apartment building, where there was a crude paper sign on the bars.

"Lock broken. No idea what happened. Will fix tomorrow. Sorry."

Gee, I wonder why.

I pushed the gate open and shuffled through the interior. A thirty-something woman with green eye-shadow, black leather nightclub pants, a tank top and a denim jacket walked down the stairs to my left, smiling and consciously swishing her tail left and right. That smile took all of three seconds to dissipate when she took a look at me.

"What on Avalice happened to you? You look terrible!"

I rose a hand in a half-hearted wave. "Long story."

Concern tinged her voice. "Are you sure you don't want me to call the hospital?"

I thought about it for a second. "Thank you, but I think I'll feel better in the morning."

I smiled at her. Clearly, that didn't reassure her in the slightest, because her gaze followed me while I half-walked, half-shuffled up the stairs to my own apartment. I unlocked the door to my apartment, stepped inside, locked the door and flicked the light switch. Again.

"Oh for Avalice's sake, you son of a bitch..."

Spade sure as shit wasn't kidding about trashing my apartment. The place was a mess. Chairs were upended, desk drawers were left open, clothes were strewn on the ground, and for some indiscernible reason, there were stains on the floor. The asshole even broke half of my fake tiles for the kitchen. That was just sadistic on a level that really should not have surprised me, but shocked me regardless. Any sympathy or regret I might have felt before dissipated after seeing that mess.

I shuffled over to the bathroom. Miraculously, that was left untouched. I took a look at myself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet.

It was surreal, to say the least. It was like looking at an entirely different person, but I knew on some level I was looking at myself. And it was so weird.

Half of my face was one big blue, black, green and purple bruise. I had soot all over my face, presumably from getting shot in the face with a fake gun. As predicted, there was a Kingdom Stone sized lump just above my right eye. And my teeth were blackened, presumably also from getting shot in the face. That put my interaction from two minutes ago in a new perspective.

My gaze shifted downwards. My shirt and jacket had dirt and grass stains on them, and my pants were torn and stained. Judging by the current fashion trend, I doubted anyone would be able to tell the difference between artfully torn fabric and 'manhandled by an assassin' torn fabric.

I sighed and put my hands on my face. When I withdrew my hands, they were black with soot.

Fantastic.

I shuffle-walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door to the freezer. I took out an ice rack, broke out some ice cubes, then fetched a ziplock bag, tossed the cubes into the bag and mashed the ice with the hilt of an eating utensil. After that was done, I fetched a chair that was lying sideways on the floor, then wrapped my right knuckle up with the improvised ice pack. The sudden cold drew a hiss from me, followed by painfully soothing relief. I sat there for maybe five minutes like that.

Then I tossed the ice pack in the freezer and experimentally flexed my knuckle. The dull throb had subsided noticeably. I once again went into the bathroom and tossed water on my face and hands. On some level, I knew I needed to take a shower, but seeing myself like that had wore me out mentally, and all I really wanted was to fall asleep forever.

So against my better judgment, I dried my face and hands with a towel, then walked into my bedroom (of course it was one big mess, except the bed was miraculously untouched), hung up my jacket on the doorknob, kicked off my shoes and fell backwards on my bed, not even bothering to change out of my clothes. Sleep met me somewhere between the time I hit the pillow and when I closed my eyes.

* * *

There was a loud, incessant knocking noise outside my bedroom, followed by a loud, incessant pounding of the bell. I was startled awake, and I just wanted to fall asleep, but I could hardly just sit in bed while someone wanted to talk to me.

I groaned heavily and attempted to get out of bed, but instead fell flat on my face. The cool but rough feel of the carpet met my face, and I just wanted to stay there for all eternity, callers be damned. I forced myself off the floor before I really did stay down there for eternity and walked to the door, opening the eyehole.

It was Barry.

I unlocked the door.

Barry was not happy. He was scowling at me.

"Sam, where the hell have you been? I've been blowing up your house phone since yesterday, and I keep getting voicemail! And you didn't answer the door when I..."

Barry had just taken a good look at me.

"Holy crap, dude. You look like hammered shit! What happened?"

I worked my jaw for a few seconds.

"It's a long story, man. Come in?"

Barry walked in, taking in the ruin that was my place. He didn't even bother to hide the incredulity on his face, and let's be real. If that was someone else's place, I'd have the same look on my face.

"Dude, what the hell happened here? This is not normal, Sam. Did you get burgled or something?"

"Technically speaking, yeah."

Barry screwed up his face in confusion.

"Technically?"

I cringed at the memory. "Well. I had a meeting with Spade...or rather, it was the other way around. He had a meeting with me, inside my own house. And he was just sitting in my kitchen like he owned the place."

Barry blinked a lot. "Dude, slow down. Did Spade just show up at your door or something?"

"You're not understanding. He broke into my place just to wait for me, inside my own house."

"What the hell did you do to piss him off?" Barry's eyes trailed off in thought. "No, you know what? You can tell me in a bit. We need to clean this place up."

Barry was shaking his head at the mess. "Holy shit, Sam..."

"Just one thing. What time is it…?"

"It's like nine in the morning. Come on."

I shut the door and locked it. Then I grudgingly took to the task of cleaning up the mess. It might have taken me ages to properly clean up the mess, but with Barry helping, the place had went from doing its best impression of a war-torn ruin of lost time to a slightly dingy, minuscule and unimpressive apartment in just under two hours.

Barry made a satisfied noise as he stood back and observed the change. Then the jubilant look faded.

"Well, the carpet stains are still going to be there. And these tiles in your kitchen still need to be replaced. You probably shouldn't do any of that 'entertaining guests' thing until you get these taken care of."

I gave him a sideways look. "Barry, you know very well these things cost money. I was barely scraping by before my place got trashed. Do I look like I'm made of money?"

Barry shrugged in that kind of 'hey, don't shoot the messenger' way. Then he walked over to the living room and sat on a chair.

"I could call in a few favors later on, help you out. But right now, the thing you should be concerned about is the story of how your apartment got trashed and why you look like a homeless guy."

I collapsed on the couch.

"Sure, sure. So it happened about two days ago, right? I set out to look for that girl in your notes, Carol Tea."

"Uh huh?"

"It took me four hours of fruitless searching, and I bumped into her five minutes after I was about to pack it up and go home. One thing led to another, and suddenly, I had an interview with the ex-Scarves."

Barry raised his eyebrows. "Seriously? You landed an interview with the girls on your first day working this article? That's pretty amazing, considering it took me a while to get a whole bunch of nothing on where these girls even lived."

I allowed myself a grin. "So after the interview, I sleep over at their treehouse and..."

Barry scoffed. "You know how creepy that sounds out of context, right?"

I scowled at Barry. "Do you want to hear this story or not?"

Barry scratched his head apologetically. "Sorry, I was just running my mouth. So what happened next?"

"So I wake up and catch a ride home. Then I eat out at a diner, and I drive to the Scarves HQ."

Barry stared at me. "I'd ask you if you had gone insane, but it's a bit too late for that. And there's this funny thing about the pot calling the kettle black."

"I park outside the headquarters, and there's this literal lemonade stand thing, except it's for contracts and stuff. It was surreal. I asked the guy at the stand if I could talk to Spade, and he told me it was one million crystals just to talk to him. It was a pretty steep price. I tried to reason with him, but I couldn't get anything out before he got mad at me and shut me down super hard. I drove back to Shang Tu and spent a while at the Roaring Dragon, then I went home."

"And then?"

"When I got home, I found that the lock on the gate was broken. I was on edge up until I got to my apartment, and who do I find but Mr. Assassin Man sitting in my kitchen shuffling cards? We exchanged words, and then he says he'll talk to me at the headquarters, but not before putting me in a sleeper hold and trashing my place."

Barry winced and threw a self-conscious glance at my hallway.

"A lot of stuff happened after that. Mr. Assassin Man talked to me, Mayor Zao showed up out of nowhere, there was a gun deal, I got shot with a fake gun by Zao's bodyguard, I punched out Spade, then I got stuffed in the trunk and the rest is history. Honestly, I'm still trying to comprehend what happened last night."

Barry had tilted his head in a confused grimace, disbelief in his voice. "Uh. You? You punched out Spade?"

"...well, honestly, I did more damage to myself than I did to him, but yeah, I punched him in the face. He deserved it."

Barry chuckled. "And uh. Zao showed up?"

"Yeah. He's a total dick."

"Don't have to tell me twice. He really hates journalists if they aren't praising him for whatever stupid thing he does. I knew he was into some shady stuff, but this is on a new level."

Barry rose from the chair. "All that being said, you sure seem to be doing decent on this article. I feel a bit bad because most of the reason you look like crap is because I foisted it off on you. So breakfast is on me today."

"No, man, it's okay, I'll deal with it myself."

Barry laughed out loud, not quite unkindly. "Sam, you don't get to play 'badass but humble everyman' with me this time. And you just told me you're strapped for cash. I'm buying you breakfast. End of story. Least I can do after all that's happened to you."

I rose off the couch with a grin. "Alright, if you insist."

"I damn well insist. Let's go."

We bro-fisted each other.

Barry took another good look at me and sniffed.

"On second thought, I'll wait up for you. You're not going out looking and smelling like that."

* * *

Breakfast was a stack of pancakes with a side of bacon and eggs, and orange juice instead of coffee. I felt more or less normal as we walked out of Archer's at two in the afternoon. It was a grey, overcast afternoon, and quite windy on top of that.

Barry stretched his arms out. "Yeah, you were right, Sam. This place is actually pretty good and doesn't murder your wallet. And the waitresses are pretty cute. You sure one of them isn't into you?"

I sighed. "We just bump into each other a lot, man. It's not like it could work out anyway."

Barry scoffed. "Typical. Wouldn't hurt you to test the waters every once in a while."

I let it go at that statement. I wasn't quite comfortable with discussing my love life, or lack thereof, and objecting might have led into a discussion I wasn't ready to have.

"So what do we do next?" I said.

"Well, judging by the fact that it took you a grand total of about one and a half days to risk your life doing stupid things, I think you need a break from this article. So we're gonna chill with a friend of mine for a bit."

Barry tossed his keys at me. I caught them.

"It's pretty windy out here. You stay in the car. I gotta make a call."

I nodded and walked over to Barry's car, unlocking the passenger door and sitting inside. It was a cool, sharp forest green Xiong Ren five-seater. It was noticeably faster than my car, which was just as well considering that it came out this year. It was also quieter, handled turns better, and had a personal music player that worked alongside the radio…

Before I could get wrapped up in jealousy, Barry knocked on the door. I jammed the keys in the ignition and unlocked the driver's door.

Barry flicked an eyebrow for a split second and started the car. The roar of the engine was swiftly followed by soft drum beats that quickly increased in tempo, followed by a guitar riff. I found myself moving my head to the beat and caught myself in time.

"Where's this friend of yours, Barry?"

"A bit uptown from here. Shouldn't take too long."

The car sped away in no time at all. With the music and Barry singing along with the lyrics, I found that the trip went by remarkably fast. We ended up in a part of town that was unfamiliar to me; it was semi-remote with legitimate houses instead of apartment buildings. Compared to the rest of Shang Tu, it was noticeably more rural, but had a modern feel to it at the same time.

Barry pulled up alongside one such house. It was a two-story house with a garage to the side. The house was painted red, but otherwise didn't stand out very much.

Barry shut off the car. "Right, then, here we are. You ready?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Barry shot me a stupid-looking grin and walked out of the car. I followed, not quite sure what to make of the situation.

We went over to the garage, where a woman wearing oil-streaked jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt was busy working under the hood of the car, a lightning purple affair with hints of azure blue on some parts. It was a model I had yet to see, but judging by the trend thus far, it stood to reason that it was one of the newest cars to come out this year. The rhythmic mechanical clanking ceased, followed by the sound of the hood closing as we approached, and I blinked as she turned and I realized who Barry's friend was.

"Yo, Judy."

"Hi, Barry." Her eyes darted from him to me, and she smiled. "Oh, hi, Sam." She took a second look at my face and frowned; I must still have looked like a walking bruise. "Are you okay? Your face doesn't look that good."

I tried my hardest to make sounds turn into words. I think I was mildly successful.

"I. Uh. Er. Um. I'm...good, I guess. You work on cars?"

Barry snickered as he observed the effect Judith's unexpected appearance was having on me. I glared at him, and resolved to do something to make him regret it. Someday. Maybe.

Judy flashed a look at her car."Yeah. It's a hobby of mine. Dad taught me a few things when I was a girl, and I guess I've never really lost my taste for it."

"That's...pretty nice, actually. My dad is a mechanic of sorts, and he likes to work on cars, among other things. He's retired now, but..." I scratched my head and laughed sheepishly.

"That's good." Judith suddenly had a moment of self-consciousness, looking down at her clothes. "Um, guys, I have to change out of these clothes. You can come inside in the meantime. Make yourself comfortable."

She looked at both of us for a second, then smiled and jogged to her house.

I turned to Barry. "So, Barry."

"Yeah?" He was still snickering.

"You've been working with Judy for a week and a half, right."

"Uh-huh."

I blinked rapidly, my voice becoming indignant. "And in a week and a half, you already know where she lives? How did that even happen?"

Barry shrugged. "I told you, I have a way with the women. And as for the unspoken question that I'm sure you're going to pose to me, I didn't even get to first base. Mostly out of consideration for your crush, but you know me pretty well by now."

I shook my head and walked towards the house. Some days, I admired Barry, and some days, I cursed his existence. Today was pretty uncertain for me.

* * *

Judy's house was certainly nice looking. It gave me a good idea of what upwards mobility looked like.

The first thing one saw upon entry was a coat and shoe rack. Barry and I kicked off our shoes and shrugged off our jackets. Barry locked the door behind him.

The house itself had large diamond-shaped white tiles across the hallway. The hallway led straight to the kitchen, where instead of tiles, there were polished brown wood tiles. The kitchen itself was slightly impressive, more or less resembling my kitchen except for the dishwasher. And the symmetrical design. And the cool oven. Seriously, that thing was digital. And probably had a pilot so you wouldn't have to ignite the gas yourself. We pulled out some kitchen chairs and sat down.

Judy walked down the stairs to greet us. She was wearing a Ninja Hurk t-shirt and navy blue sweats this time. The shirt was depicting a scene where the aforementioned hero, a mutant ninja with super strength, was about to meet an alien spaceship with his fist, in space, while the big bad was trying to shoot him down. It looks much better than it sounds, I swear.

"Do you guys want a beer or something? There's some cans in the fridge."

I nodded, and Judy dutifully fetched cans of a brand called Lucky Cat. I broke open the can and took an experimental sip; the taste was noticeably heavy, and it tasted like a lot of things, but most notably honey. It was decent, and I felt like it could grow on me.

"So what have you guys been up to on Golden Week?"

Barry covered a belch with an arm. "Not much to say. I caught a movie called Zephyr; it was about a guy who got sick of being held down by the man and tried to punch out the entire government. It sounds better than it was, though. Movie kind of sucked and took forever to get to the point."

Judy sighed. "Good thing I didn't buy a ticket for that one, then. What about you, Sam?"

I shrugged. "Well, it's a bit of a long story, but in short, I've been running all over the place gathering information about an article I'm working on."

Judy's ears perked up in interest. "An article? About what?"

"Well, it was Barry's idea more so than anything, but I want to write an article about a person called Coral Tea. She's supposed to be this super badass Red Scarf who disappeared off the face of the earth, and no one knows what happened to her."

"Well, if you're working on your week off, it must be pretty important to you. I wonder if that has anything to do with your face, though."

I grimaced as I remembered the sequence of events once again. "In a manner of speaking, you could say that."

Judy's eyebrows raised. "Well, the premise sounds interesting, at least. I hope to read it someday, but you probably need to find a different way to get information that doesn't involve getting hurt."

I scoffed. "You're telling me."

Because I wasn't that eager to retell the events once again, I changed the subject.

"So uh, that interview with the Magister. How did that one go?"

Judy smiled. "He's quite the interesting character. I didn't know what to expect, but well..."

Barry picked up the hanging thread. "Basically, the Magister is a huge nerd. He's got a lot of cool insights and all, but man, do not get him started on computers or tim-tams. He wouldn't stop gushing about these tim-tams and how they're the best snack in the world ever and there should be a currency exchange program based on tim-tams. We had to edit out a lot of that stuff just so the article wouldn't hit seventeen pages. And he sounded like a kid when we asked about Outer Kingdom innovations. Something about how computers would literally revolutionize the world as we knew it and he couldn't wait to get his hands on one."

Judy laughed. "I couldn't believe my ears when he went on these long tangents about the biscuits! You forgot the part where his favorite TV show was that sappy romantic soap opera that's playing right now."

I snickered."Probably because Barry is also watching that soap opera. He wouldn't shut up about it when he started watching it. It was kind of embarassing."

Barry choked on his beer. "Hey, Sam! We talked about this before. You don't diss my tastes, and I don't diss yours."

Judy gave an incredulous stare at Barry. "You too, Barry? I didn't know you were into these kinds of shows."

Barry had the grace to look embarrassed. "It's just a guilty pleasure, okay?"

Judy laughed. "If you say so. But when he isn't going on these rants, he's actually quite insightful. He said that peace between all nations was his ultimate goal, and that could be best achieved by uniting the kingdoms instead of leaving them separate, no matter how long it took."

Barry nodded. "Yeah. He's a real down to earth nerd. Wouldn't trade him for anyone else."

Hearing about the Magister made me feel bitter overall. He might have been playing the good guy, and indeed, there was hardly any reason to truly hate the Magister, as every decision he made since he took office had only bettered Shang Tu as a whole, and indirectly benefited Shang Mu and Shuigang as well. I distinctly remembered how happy my parents were when he took office. I had thought that he was better than the average politician.

But in the end, the Magister wasn't that different from an average politician. The only difference was that he was exceptionally good at public relations. But as down to earth as he supposedly was, I had to wonder at the motivations of a person who had commissioned a literal weapon of mass destruction. Quite honestly, it scared me.

But I didn't want to shatter the image of the Magister on a whim. Perhaps I still wanted to believe that the Magister was a good guy, deep down.

So instead of dropping the bombshell, I went along with the flow. We talked about bad movies, bacon ale, vacation spots, Ninja Hurk, Eagle Eye (the detective comic about an eagle who used to work as a police officer, then was disgraced and became a private investigator), tabloid journalism (please do not ask), alien life on other planets, whether Eagle Eye could beat Ninja Hurk in a fight (for the record, Eagle Eye would totally beat up Ninja Hurk), what to do for the rest of Golden Week…

Perhaps two and a half hours passed before the doorbell rang.

Judy blinked, having been in the middle of a conversation.

"Uh, I'll get the door, guys."

Judy walked over to the door and opened it. A pangolin decked out in the magistrate uniform walked in. He had a blaster in a pocket holster and a nightstick looped through his belt. He was in his late thirties, as it happened.

"Evening to you kids." His voice was an odd mix of musical and gravelly.

Barry raised his empty can of beer to him. "Yo, Officer Ken. Here for business or pleasure?"

Apparently, Barry knew this particular magistrate officer well.

The pangolin smiled sadly. "Unfortunately, Barry Dean Allen, it's business this time around. I'm looking for a chap called Samuel Swift."

I rose from my chair and extended my hand. "That's me, Officer. What do you need?"

The pangolin—Ken, was it?-looked at my hand and lightly shook his head.

"Before I do this, I just wanted to say that my son works at the Avalice Times, and he said that you were a pretty nice guy, never caused trouble for anyone. I guess you don't judge a book by its cover, especially not these days."

I was confused. "Um, what are you talking about?"

The pangolin sighed and fished out a flyer from his back pocket, showing it to me.

"You've been marked as a person of interest by the Royal Magister. You are under arrest for the crimes of illegal weapon sales in the kingdom of Shang Tu, bribery and slandering a government official."

Words could not express how utterly shocked I was.

"….What?! That has to be a mistake!"

Judy and Barry were shocked. The pangolin took in these reactions and dispassionately fished out his handcuffs, binding my hands together. I wish I could say that sensation wasn't familiar to me.

"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided to you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?"

Barry rose from his chair in a storm. "Dude, this has to be a mistake! Sam is one of the coolest guys I know, and he'd never get involved in that crap to start with!"

Judy crossed her arms, frowning fiercely. "Do you have proof of these allegations, officer?"

The pangolin shrugged. "Can't divulge too many details. Magister says he has a reliable witness, and it's his orders."

I was dragged away while Judy and Barry were uncomfortably staring at me.

Barry yelled out. "Hey, Sam! Whatever you do, don't talk to anyone without a laywer! We'll figure this thing out!"

Unfortunately, I had already figured this thing out.

I did not like my odds when politics were involved.

Especially when the frigging Mayor Zao had just screwed me.


	7. Frosty Reception, Hard Politics

There are a few things about getting arrested that most people never talk about.

Firstly, when you get the cuffs slapped on you, the cops don't really care if you're missing your shoes or your jacket. So I was being dragged out of Judy's house in the chill of a darkening October evening with just my shirt, my pants, the stuff in my pockets and my socks as company. And goddamn, it was cold out tonight. The wind especially had decided to punish me for my nefarious crimes by pelting me with a hundred blades of glacier-cold drafts that cut through my clothes and left me shivering. That's just sadism at this point.

Secondly, being arrested tends to attract attention, even in what I assumed was a relatively quiet area of town. So while I was being frog-marched to Officer Ken's car, several people in the vicinity had left their homes to watch the spectacle. The stares cut into my consciousness; I was being labeled as a Terrible, Horrible No-Good Very Bad Man who deserved to get punished with extreme prejudice. One youngish kid had decided to rub it in further by shouting for all of Avalice to hear that I was a bad man and I should stay in prison for the rest of my life. That was super unfair, and a bit much considering how cold out it was.

Thirdly, holy shit are the backs of cop cars cramped. I was forced into the car and unkindly pushed into the seats. When I tried to get my legs in a comfortable position, I found that I couldn't. The hard leather was, as you might have guessed, uncomfortably hard, and there was no place I could get purchase or comfortably wedge my legs into without the leather cutting into my flanks several seconds later. A lot of squirming was done before I finally just gave up and sulked, periodically adjusting my legs every time it got uncomfortable.

Fourthly, cops make for poor conversation partners when they're driving you to the Magister's palace. I tried to strike up some conversation, mostly preceded by assertions of my innocence, and was met with stony silence. Maybe he was normally this reserved with every criminal he had ever busted, and I wasn't a special case. Or maybe it was the opposite. Or maybe I was doing the conversation thing wrong. Who knows.

Fifthly, ow damn it shit I just banged my head this is not cool what the hell ow ow am I getting another frigging lump on my head oh land of Avalice this sucks super hard can I please not end up on tomorrow's news?

Sixthly…

Wait…

I can't think of anything right now. Did I bang my head that hard?

Screw it.

The short version is that getting arrested sucks.

However, there is a really good way to avoid being arrested that doesn't boil down to 'be a good citizen.'

You ready for it? Here it comes.

Don't be a menace in Shang Tu while drinking your juice in the 'hood.

Wait, no, that's all wrong. Here's the real piece of advice.

Don't be me.

* * *

I was frog-marched to a set of wooden double doors. The doors were flanked by two guards, who were apparently paid to do their best impression of stone gargoyles. Their thousand yard gazes were unsettling, and I wasn't sure if it was because I was technically a criminal and thus reading too much into the stares, or because they were just that good.

One of them nodded to the officer. "This the guy?"

I couldn't see Officer Ken's face, but the affirmative grunt followed by the unlocking of the doors said all that I needed to know. From there, it was a short walk up a carpeted and ornate staircase that was flanked by several stone columns and luminescent lights, followed by another set of double doors, and I was staring at what had to be the main hall of the palace.

The Magister's palace was enormous, for lack of a better word.

The main hall opened into a large, arched ceiling that had a painting of a yellow-scaled dragon of old with ruby-red eyes, either coiling or stretching out and looking very majestic in its entirety. Maybe it was just me, though, but I was pretty sure the eyes were following me around, waiting to pass judgment for my crimes. You know, the crimes I didn't commit.

The ceiling aside, the red carpet led directly to the Magister's throne, where it opened out to a circular balcony that looked out over the city of Shang Tu. The view was flanked by several bannered columns and strategically placed lights that illuminated the hall, and you could see out across the entire city for miles. I was sure it tended to be much more breath-taking at morning rather than the evening, but the patchwork of lights across the city made for a passable spectacle. The lack of a draft blowing in most likely meant the balcony had transparent glass or something similar.

And of course, there was the Magister, flanked by his right-hand woman, Neera Li. The Magister was dressed from head to toe with royal garments, deep blue with yellow accents. As always, his face looked just like a pair of large, piercing, unblinking violet eyes, the rest shrouded by the helmet that he wore. Neera had similarly piercing purple eyes and was dressed in a priestess's garb, a flowing purple dress with white accents that ended just below the knees, and she was wielding her staff off-handedly. On any other woman, the outfit would've been breath-takingly beautiful. But on Neera, while it certainly added to her looks, it somehow also added much more to her cold, solemn and severe demeanor. Naturally, it stood out much more than her looks.

I gulped at the sight of the combined political power. I hoped it wasn't audible from thirty feet away.

The Magister spoke, his voice practically booming.

"I see you have apprehended the perpetrator."

Officer Ken stepped out from behind me and bowed deeply.

"Yes, my lord."

"Good work. Release him, and you may go."

There was warmth in that voice when he addressed the officer. But when the officer had unlocked my cuffs and left, and the Magister's attention turned to me, his voice had turned cold and harsh.

"So you have arrived, Samuel Swift. You are aware of the charges against you, correct?"

My mouth had gone dry. It's not often that you get a chance to talk to the Magister, but I wasn't expecting my first meeting to be in the context of being brought up on criminal charges. I knew he was especially tough on criminals and liars.

I choked the words out of my mouth. They came out sounding squeaky, which was a great first impression.

"Uh, yeah, I'm aware."

The Magister renewed his piercing stare on me.

"Are you also aware of the penalties of these crimes?"

I stayed silent for a few seconds, not trusting my voice.

"Very well," the Magister said, the words sardonic. "The sale of illegal weaponry is punishable by twenty years in prison, non-negotiable. Bribery and slander are three years minimum. You lead quite the double life for a mere tabloid journalist, Mr. Swift. What do you have to say for yourself?"

I winced first. Then the wince turned into an awkward smile, with no trace of humor in it.

"...do I get a lawyer? And a phone call?"

"No. If this was a regular criminal trial, perhaps, but you are here because I summoned you. The normal amenities of the accused do not apply under my summons. And quite frankly, judging by your appearance, I see nothing about you that would indicate the charges are wrongful."

My mouth opened and shot off words before checking in with the rest of my brain. I don't usually do that. But maybe the nerves were getting to me.

"Well, gee, I'm so sorry I look like a pile of hammered shit, Mr. Magister guy," I spat out, the heat rising with every word as I furiously counted off my fingers. "I only had to get beat up, kidnapped, get shot in the face, get my place trashed, endure the g-forces of a motorcycle running at two hundred MPH and have my milk spoil on me AGAIN. So excuse me if I don't look like a frigging diplomat, you sanctimonious, condescending, self-righteous son of a -"

I didn't get the last word out because at that moment, the air suddenly became very cold. And in seconds, I found myself encased in sub-zero ice. I couldn't move or breathe, and it was way, way too damn cold to think. I could only hear my teeth clicking against each other while I shivered uncontrollably as the seconds stretched to minutes, minutes stretched to hours, hours stretched to years, years stretched to eternities….

And then a crackling sound. I saw a crack in the ice that expanded at alarming speed, before finally breaking apart outwards. Somehow, no shards fell on me. But because I just can't catch a break, I lost my balance and fell to the floor, hugging myself while I sucked in greedy breaths. So much for good impressions.

Neera had pointed her staff at me in an attempt to silence my slanderous, vitriolic heresy. And it worked. I suddenly didn't feel like doing a lot of anything that involved talking or defending myself.

The Magister was clearly livid; his pupils had shrunk dangerously and he carried himself with a bitter stiffness.

"I am appalled at your absolute lack of respect for the position you are in, and myself. Neera. Take this man to the holding cells. I do not wish to see him until the morrow."

Neera bowed to him, respect in her eyes.

"Of course, Magister."

Then she turned to me, contempt and daggers in her eyes. She forced me to my feet and purposefully marched me to a nearby door. Her face did all the talking for us, and I was humbled (and cold) enough to stay silent. The Magister looked at us go, and then watched the view of Shang Tu at night.

Thanks, mouth. That was a bang-up job. You really killed it back there. Good job.

* * *

Of course, our first stop wasn't the holding cells. I was first taken to a shower room of sorts and was stripped down to my underwear, my recorder and tape confiscated in the process. In hindsight, Spade labeling it may not have been the best idea, because Neera's scowl deepened upon reading the label. Avalice knew what kind of thoughts were running through that woman's head, but they couldn't have been bright and cheery.

I was then blasted with cold water for several minutes. I was shivering, but it wasn't a bone-deep shivering like it had been when I got frozen. When I politely asked for a change of clothes, I had a pink flower kimono with sandals on top forcefully thrust into my hands. I got the message right away.

After I changed into the kimono and sandals, feeling vaguely ridiculous in the outfit, I was then led by the arm to the holding cells. Rather than being brightly lit like the main hall had been, the holding cells were darker and danker, with only green bioluminescent crystals sporadically spread out across the cells for lighting. The air was still and quiet, and our footsteps echoed throughout the hall. I felt creeped out by the whole thing, and I probably wouldn't have been surprised if we had been ganked by a nocturnal alien monster at any point during our trip.

As it was, we passed through rows of cells. The cells were mostly empty, but some were holding nefarious prisoners of fate who had probably done something super badass to warrant a spot in the holding cells and were noticeably not wearing kimonos, before Neera picked an empty cell at random. The bars were made of shimmering yellow-green energy, and there was a keypad next to it. Neera punched in some keys and the bars parted. I was marched into the cell and pushed lightly into it. The energy bars sparked back to life in seconds, effectively sealing me away from freedom.

I experimentally gripped the bars. They were surprisingly cool to the touch.

"Uh, so can I get my recorder and tapes back?"

Neera's eyes flashed with scorn.

"And pray tell, Mr. Swift, what makes you believe a criminal such as you is entitled to your personal possessions?" I could practically feel the icicles in the air as she talked.

I sighed. "...well, it was worth a shot anyway."

"No matter. The Magister wishes to speak with you tomorrow. I would hope you learn how to guard your tongue and show respect to your superiors by then."

I felt a quip coming on. After seeing what she was capable of doing, though, I wasn't sure I wanted to lower the woman's already low opinion of me.

So instead, I bit my tongue and nodded vigorously. See, I can do the diplomacy thing just fine.

Her gaze lingered on my face, apparently trying to ascertain my guilt. Then she abruptly broke the gaze and walked down the stone floor, her footsteps echoing all the way until they faded out of earshot.

With nothing to keep me company, I examined the surroundings of my cell. It was a drab square with a bed and a toilet in separate corners. A crystal was pulsating nearby, emitting a dull, green light. I idly wondered how the sleeping thing would work with a crystal five feet from the bed. It was probably just something that you got used to.

I took off the sandals and collapsed on the bed. The mattress was hard and unyielding, clearly designed so that no one got too comfortable trying to sleep, and the blankets were thin and only barely fit the bed. At least the pillows were soft compared to the rest of the bed...which wasn't saying much considering how low the standard was to start with.

My thoughts wandered as I tried to make sense of the situation. Jail was certainly not in the plans for my future. But assuming the Mayor and the Magister were super tight with each other, I wasn't under the impression I'd be seeing much of the sun for a long, long while as long as it was my word against the Mayor. Hell, depending on how much the Magister hated my guts, there was the very real possibility that I'd live out the rest of my life in prison, just for asking questions. I certainly didn't help my case by mouthing off to the Magister, but just the thought of life in prison was super unfair.

Thoughts swirled into conspiracy theories, most likely with a justifiable basis behind them. Conspiracy theories morphed into doomsday scenarios. Doomsday scenarios morphed into sheer boredom. Sheer boredom morphed into laments of innocence. I think there was poetry somewhere in there.

* * *

It felt like years had passed before I finally closed my eyes. And only five minutes later, the bars were sparking to life, startling me awake.

A tiger guard was prodding the bars periodically with his nightstick. I put my slippers on and approached the bars.

"The Magister wants to see you, son."

I groaned and blinked my eyes rapidly. "Yeah, yeah, all right...what time is it again?"

"Five in the morning," he said, as if that was a normal occurrence.

I guess that was technically tomorrow, but damn. I don't even normally wake up that early for my own job.

The guard looked me over and grinned. "Nice kimono, by the way. My daughter likes that kind of dress."  
I wasn't even going to dignify that with a response. I hoped the stare I gave him said all that needed to be said.

I waited patiently as the guard punched in some numbers and the bars lowered. Then I was just following him around as he led me out of the cells and into yet another unfamiliar part of the Magister's palace. Several twisting hallways and winding staircases later, we had apparently arrived at my destination.

The guard inclined his head ever so slightly, then walked off. It was a non-verbal assertion that I was on my own here. I waited several seconds before slowly opening the door.

The room was surprisingly bare. There was just the Magister sitting in a chair and facing the door, his gloved hands folded. There was a table with several implements on it and a spare chair. Otherwise, this could've just been a medium-sized utility closet with how barren the decoration was. I closed the door behind me and slowly walked to the chair, feeling extremely self-conscious all of a sudden.

Only when I sat down did he turn his chair to face me.

"Would you like to drink some tea?"

My eyes darted to the teapot and the cups on the table.

"Uh. Sure. I guess. Maybe."

The Magister gripped the teapot and poured tea into both cups. I took one and sipped lightly. It tasted positively herbal, most likely some form of sencha green tea.

"Is the tea to your liking?"

I wondered if this was going somewhere.

"Yes?"

"Very good." He sounded sincere, somehow.

Several tense seconds passed as we sipped more tea and I waited for him to start the interview that would most likely get my ass locked behind prison bars.

"I find that even the most heinous of criminals deserve a measure of respect."

I stayed silent, not quite sure how to respond.

"All you are obligated to do is to answer my questions truthfully. If you lie to me, I will not be lenient with your punishment. I despise liars."

The words were heavy, but there was no heat behind the words. Just a statement of fact, nothing more, nothing less.

I idly wondered if Spade took lessons from the Magister. Or if they weren't all that different from each other to start with.

"Now then. How would you characterize your relationship with the Red Scarves?"

I looked around nervously before answering.

"Thus far? I'd say it's pretty antagonistic."

The Magister fixed me with a piercing stare. "And yet this 'antagonistic' relationship would see you smuggling in fifty million crystals worth of illegal weaponry into the kingdom of Shang Tu. Interesting."

I blinked.

"Uh. Would it matter if I told you I had nothing to do with any of that?"

The Magister sipped more tea. I think I liked it better when he was talking.

"I am told that the Mayor Zao was spirited away by a Red Scarf member from his palace in Shang Mu. He was held against his will and forced to watch as a deal took place, and you were the one who brought in the weaponry, flanked by two roguish criminals. Then, the Scarves used him as target practice while you watched the spectacle and laughed, as if it were an entertainment show. And after the deal was over, you had the gall to offer him five million crystals to stay quiet about the deal."

The story was so full of holes that I was struggling to not laugh out loud at how absurd it was, for fear of somehow weakening my case even further. Zao had literally swapped his role around with mine and embellished the entire thing for emotional torque. The sheer audacity of that, when he almost literally mashed his face up against mine and asked me if I had any last words, was hilarious.

Something must have shown on my face, though, because the Magister's eyes widened slightly, as if he were confused about something.

"Is there something funny, Mr. Swift?"

"Yeah, actually." The giggles escaped from my throat before I could stop them, and I decided I just didn't care; my reputation was already shot as it was, and it couldn't possibly go any lower. "I can't believe how dumb this Zao guy is."

The Magister had a quizzical look on his face. "Explain yourself."

"Okay, for starters, I was the guy who was held against my will. I was the guy who watched as Zao brought in a frigging weapon chest. And I bet he never told you that he tried to get me killed, and literally sat three inches from my face and asked me if I had anything to say before I died. Am I right?"

The Magister put his cup down and laid his hands on the table.

"This is troubling news. But even assuming that you are telling the truth, I cannot just take your word at face value. It is my position to take any threats against political leaders seriously, for the sake of Avalice as well as Shang Tu. Do you have any proof to back up these claims?"

Something snapped around the time he said 'for the sake of Avalice'. I banged my fist on the table. It hurt, but I didn't care.

"You are so full of shit, Magister. Can't be all that concerned about 'the sake of Avalice' when you commissioned a weapon of mass destruction several years ago!"

The Magister's eyes slowly widened as he drew himself up, possibly in an attempt to seem taller than he was.

"...Excuse me?" Anger tinged his words.

"Damn it, don't play stupid with me! See, I'm a journalist, first and foremost, so it's my job to find out what's going on behind the scenes and write about it, even if it means stupid shit like celebrity gossip and holiday articles. You want proof? I have frigging Spade on tape saying you sent him on a contract to fix your screw-up after some asshole stole your WMD and tried to blow up the Three Kingdoms!"

More words came tumbling out. The metaphorical dam had cracked, and water was seeping out in a deluge that threatened to engulf my subconscious.

"All this time. All this damn time, while you were giving bullshit speeches about bringing peace and harmony to Avalice, you had a goddamn WMD sitting around, waiting to use it on the first guy who dared to go against you! My parents voted for you because they thought you were the change Avalice needed. What kind of 'peace and harmony' do you achieve with a WMD?! What the hell is wrong with you?! What the FUCK do you have to say for yourself, you fucking hypocrite?!"

The echoes of my furious shouting bounced around the room.

The room fell into silence for a tense half-minute.

The Magister rose from his chair slowly.

"I would like to hear this tape for myself, Mr. Swift."

* * *

Several minutes later, Neera walked into the room, holding my recorder.

She bowed deeply to the Magister.

"Good morning, Magister. I was told you called for me?"

"Thank you for coming, Neera. I have heard...troubling claims, and I wish to confirm their veracity."

Neera looked me over once again and raised an eyebrow, with none of the previous hostility she had displayed.

"Certainly. Is there anything else you need?"

The Magister let out a long sigh.

"I would also like you to stay. If Mr. Swift is telling the truth, I suspect I may need your assistance."

Neera's formerly dutiful face turned quizzical. She wordlessly placed the recorder on the table and pressed Play.

Spade's cold, near-impassive voice came to life. In just over a half hour, he described the last contract he had worked with Coral. Compared to the interview with the ex-Scarves, he sounded much more sure of himself, hardly stumbling over his words or adding filler where it didn't belong. And of course, he laid out the damning bombshell that would confirm the veracity of my claims.

The recorder went dead shortly after. The Magister closed his eyes and rested his still-darkened face on his hands, and Neera had once more assumed a dutiful, impassive look. I just stood there like a knob, waiting for someone to say something.

The Magister sighed. "I see. So the Red Scarves were not entirely truthful with Spade in the end. How unfortunate."

I blinked twice. "What the hell are you trying to say?"

Neera once again had a flash of irritation in her eyes, but the Magister raised a hand and shook his head, as if trying to say 'don't freeze the messenger'.

"As it is, everything that was said in this tape was true. I was the one who sent the contract to the Scarves, and the object that was stolen from Shang Tu was indeed used as a WMD. But as with all lies, the best way to shroud the truth is to veil it in half-truths, or omit parts of it entirely. I suspect that is what happened here."

Huh. Okay.

"As a leader, the choices I have to make are rarely clear-cut. It is never as simple as correct or incorrect, good or bad, right or wrong. Therefore, the question is only whether one is willing to accept the burden of walking in the grey, for what is grey but a combination of white and black? You may call me a hypocrite, Mr. Swift, and unfortunately, there have been times where my vision for Avalice conflicted with what had to be done for the greater good. I am not proud of these moments, and I agonize over the consequences of the hard choices I have had to make almost daily. This contract was one such moment."

The Magister fell silent, and Neera picked up the hanging thread, as if on cue. It felt vaguely like I was watching a play.

"We take the worldwide unlimited energy of the Kingdom Vortex for granted now, but for decades, centuries even, there have been problems with the Kingdom Stone. Simple geography made it impossible for every single civilization to reap the benefits of the Kingdom Stone, and many nations have resented the Three Kingdoms for their relative proximity to the Kingdom Stone. How can you ask entire nations to be reasonable when they find themselves unable to match the technological innovations the Three Kingdoms have made, forced to rely on inferior, inefficient substitutions for energy?

"And yet, this jealousy brought out the drive to make a replacement that was similar to or superior to the Kingdom Stone. A rising star of the Outer Kingdoms, one such person from Nam Dinh worked tirelessly on such a project. It took a decade and a half, but this man had finally created technology that would extend the influence of the Kingdom Stone to the Outer Kingdoms. In theory, that is."

The Magister nodded sagely. He took a deep breath.

"I was impressed by this man's work, and commissioned work on this technology in the hopes of eventually bringing clean energy to all of Avalice and ending the tension the Outer Kingdoms had for us. But it only took several months before our engineers would discover a fatal flaw in how the technology worked.

"It was not intended as a weapon of mass destruction. However, this technology was able to absorb energy from not only the Kingdom Stone, but also from the various substitutions the Outer Kingdoms used, and release that energy at one hundred times the magnitude. This would have a destructive effect when used in that way; hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, would perish in the ensuing explosion, and cities the size of Shuigang would be disintegrated in mere seconds.

"This was quite alarming news. While this function would most likely not be discovered by the general public for years to come, it only takes one person to misuse such technology and make the rest suffer, and it would be extremely irresponsible for this technology to go out in the state it was. Our engineers attempted to work with this person, find alternatives that still allowed the technology to do its intended function without the threat of a doomsday-level explosion looming over our heads. But nothing worked; the clean energy would either be so minuscule as to be not worth the expense, or it would negatively impact the Kingdom Stone, or it would simply not function.

"There was no hope for a solution that would solve all of these issues and still function as intended. So, with what I knew, I was forced to cut funding for the technology and decommission it indefinitely. However, it took quite a toll on this person. He was initially an idealistic, reasonable man, but he rapidly became mentally ill. He became the ruler of Nam Dinh a year later, and orchestrated a raid to steal the technology we had decommissioned several months later. Needless to say, he was successful.

"We had no legal options to solve the problem peaceably. The technology was initially for our eyes only, but this person had reached out to the rest of the Outer Kingdoms with promises of a technology that would end their suffering. They were united against us; in the blink of an eye, we were demonized as arrogant hoarders of vital technology that would solve every problem the Outer Kingdoms had with energy. Negotiations were not feasible, as their representatives would not hear a word we said. To go to war with Nam Dinh would see us winning the war, but justifying the fears the Outer Kingdoms had for us, and turning our allies against us at the same time."

The Magister poured himself another cup of tea (still steaming hot, somehow) and drank deeply while Neera cleared her throat.

"However, we did have one option. The Red Scarves, as you would know, are an organized crime association. They do not discern between factions; they will gladly take contracts from anyone, anywhere, for a price. And they were extremely skilled at what they did, always getting the job done no matter what was asked of them.

"I convinced the Magister that the Scarves were our best chance at solving the problem quickly and efficiently. He was...hesitant, though. It took several weeks for us to get on the same page, as he was adamant that using the Scarves to solve the problem ran counter to his vision for Avalice. Eventually, though, pragmatism won out over ideals. We were intentionally vague with the details, for we feared the consequences if our messenger was intercepted and interrogated for information. And the rest is history."

The Magister put his cup down and spread his hands.

"Do you see now, Mr. Swift? Do you see the dilemma we were faced with, and why I did what I had to?"

Lost for words, I could only non-verbally agree.

The heat of my anger had seeped out of me. What was left couldn't be neatly described or quantified.

I just felt cold.


	8. The Greatest Story Ever Told

The Magister laid back in his chair, seemingly exhausted from the effort it took to construct, test drive and finally fly a plane of truth right into my face.

"Thank you again for coming, Neera. You may be dismissed."

Neera bowed again.

"What should I do with Mr. Swift's recorder, Magister?"

"Leave it."

Neera looked like she was about to say something, but thought better of it. She bowed again and left the room.

The door closed, and the Magister turned to face me.  
"As for you, Mr. Swift. I believe that I was wrong about you."

I allowed myself a small grin. "How's that?"

The Magister blinked twice. "You are an insolent, belligerent and disrespectful ass."

That wiped the grin right off my face.

"But...given the facts that have come to light, I have come to the conclusion that you are certainly no criminal. And I suspect that though you have all the makings of an unreasonable person, you're a good man underneath. Granted, a good man with questionable common sense, but you have integrity. Surprisingly few people have this quality, even when they pretend or even believe themselves to possess it."

The Magister leaned in closer.

"I am officially dropping all the charges against you. But hear me very well: I have my eye on you. While you may be a good man, you appear to have made some questionable acquaintances, and it would be very irresponsible of me to leave you to your devices unchecked. Do you understand me?"

I briefly debated refuting the Magister's statement about my 'acquaintances', but on second thought, he was technically right…

"Yeah, I understand. Am I free to go?"

"Indeed." All traces of previous hostility were absent from the Magister's tone. Instead, he was speaking with respect.

I scratched my head, feeling vaguely stupid. "Uh, can I ask you a couple of questions, Magister?"

"Certainly."

"Okay, first off. I might be free to go, but are you going to do anything if I were to publish an article about what I just heard here, and a bit more?"

The Magister regarded me for a few seconds before answering. "Politically speaking, I would be obligated to do something. Certainly, what I have just told you is sensitive information, and I do not benefit from having classified information published in an article, in any way. But realistically? I have no intention to stop you. The truth of things, as it were, would cause quite the outrage if I were to tell it personally. A third party source, on the other hand..."

I ran this through my head and came up with a whole bunch of nothing. Either the Magister just didn't care, or there was something else going on that he wasn't telling me. Or maybe he just legitimately wanted the truth to get out somehow. I wasn't a politician, so I would probably would never know, but I still wasn't seeing why it might be better for the Avalice Times to publish my article than for him to say it straight out.

Not wanting to push my luck, though, I did my best impression of a sage nod.

"Secondly, can I get my other tape back?"

"Yes, of course."

"And thirdly, what are you going to do about Mayor Zao? Cause, you know, he lied to you and all."

The Magister's face was still darkened behind the helmet. So I felt the wolfish grin spread on the Magister's face, despite not actually seeing anything besides his narrowed eyes.

"Yes. Yes, certainly. All shall be revealed in time, Mr. Swift."

* * *

I was led out of the Magister's palace an hour later, with my wallet, my keys and my recorder tapes. It was seven in the morning, a blasphemous time for the average working man. The sun was shining brightly, but the sunlight was cool on my skin rather than warm. Fortunately, it wasn't as cold and windy as it had been last night.

I hailed down a taxi five minutes later.

"Morning. Could you take me to 210 Middle Shang Tu, between Shenzhen and Shen Yi?"

The bird taxi driver, a man in his late 20s, turned to me and said "Sure."

And then he did a double take.

"...I know I probably shouldn't ask, but why in the hell are you wearing a woman's kimono at this hour? You lose a bet or something?"

I had almost forgotten that I was still wearing that ridiculous outfit. I blushed and scratched my head sheepishly.

"A lot of stuff happened last night, man. I hardly remember all of it, and I'm still working off this hangover."

The bird raised an eyebrow, looked at the palace, then at me, and his eyes widened in understanding.

"Ahh...so the Magister does know how to throw a party after all...didn't know he was THAT down to earth."

I probably shouldn't have cared as much as I did, but I didn't like where this was heading.

"What the-argh forget it. Can we go?"

He gave me a big grin and started driving. I silently fumed at whatever conclusions this dude had somehow come to.

Forty minutes later, the taxi pulled up to my apartment building. I paid the man 200 crystals, and he grinned yet again at me. Then he drove off. I shook my head and walked to the gate, attempting to push it open. It didn't open instantly, so I could only assume that the landlord had stayed true to his word and got the lock fixed. Yay for all of us.

I unlocked the gate and walked to my apartment, unlocking it. I was mildly surprised when I found that it looked exactly the same as it had yesterday, when Barry and I cleaned up the place. I probably shouldn't have, but let's say that with everything that happened these past few days, it wasn't exactly out of the realm of possibility that someone might try to screw with me once again. I locked the door behind me and took the kimono off, dressing in more sensible clothes as always.

I briefly considered tossing the kimono in the trash. But as always, practicality won out over pride. While it wasn't meant to be a gift in the slightest, free clothes are free clothes. Worst case scenario, I could just give this to someone as a gift. Granted, there weren't a lot of people I knew who would appreciate a gift like that, but it's the thought that counts, right? Also, I felt like being a rebel, with some lame philosophical reason about blunting the humiliation the kimono had on me if I just took the symbolism out of the garment, and a slightly more understandable reason about sticking it to the man. Sue me.

So instead, I folded up the kimono as neatly as I could and put it in my closet. I'm not sure how well I managed, as I didn't normally wear such garments and had no idea how to handle them, but it was better than nothing. Then I walked to the living room, picked up the house phone and scrolled through my voicemail.

There were five messages in total.

Three of them were from Barry. The first one at 10 AM, October 1, was jubilant, telling me about how he just published his duo article and we should celebrate later on with drinks at the Roaring Dragon.

The second one at 1 PM was less jubilant, wondering out loud where the hell I was and to call him back as soon as I got this.

The third one at 7 PM (hint: that's when I got my ass kidnapped) was outright worried. Barry said he'd be stopping by tomorrow if I didn't get back to him, because 'dude, you don't normally turn down an excuse to get drunk off your ass.'

The next message was the landlord, at 7:15 PM. He was a panda in his mid-40s, and he was a nice guy, if a little high-strung when it came to rent. He had called to tell me that all of the tenants on the first and second floors of my apartment section had called him to complain about noise issues, and to turn down the volume on whatever fool party or music was going on in my apartment. He also added that my rent was due in two weeks, and to pay him by then.

The final message was an unfamiliar person, at 12 PM on October 2. The person didn't say anything at all, so it was just a minute and a half of dead silence before I finally heard the click of a phone resting in its receiver.

I shook my head. I suppose I should've been more worried considering the circumstances, but it was too early to give a damn right now. I called up Barry's house.

The phone rang thrice, and then Barry picked up.

"Yo, Barry. It's me."

"argh grr what the hell this is way too early for...wait wait WAIT. Is that you, Sam?"

"Yeah."

"Holy shit. What happened? Did you get let off the hook?"

"Manner of speaking, yeah. You and Judy were right about the Magister after all."

"Wait. 'After all?'"

Oops.

"Er, nothing. Anyway, we came to an understanding, and I was cleared of the charges. I just got home now."

"Man, that's good news. I knew you were too good for all that crap the officer said. But you know how worried Judy was about you? She couldn't sit still for more than a minute, and I had no idea what to say to her."

I winced. In retrospect, it must have looked super bad to get arrested for what were decidedly serious charges.

"Anyway, yeah, Sam. I'll call her up, tell her you got off. You okay?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"Alright, talk to you later."

"Later."

The receiver clicked. I put down the phone as well and walked to my room, collapsing on my bed. It was hard to believe that so much could happen in three days, and that I had already gotten some measure of political and unscrupulous attention in these three days.

And then I sat up with a jolt. I was a journalist, dammit, and I would do journalist things right this minute.

So I jumped off the bed and sat at my desk, gathering together what I knew about Coral Tea and the related circumstances that led to her death.

And then I picked up the pen, gathered a stack of lined paper and starting writing. For hours, the scribbling of pen on paper consumed me as I attempted to write an objective and interesting article for once in my life.

* * *

At 5 PM, I had an article that spanned several pages and went into painstaking detail about our dear beloved Annie Oakley to the best of my knowledge; how she became infamous, how she died, how she ultimately saved the world, and the circumstances that surrounded her death, with all the sensitive information the ex-Scarves, Spade, Neera and the Magister had willingly divulged to me.

I blew on it and sat back, pride overwhelming me. It was perfect. Just the sort of thing I had hoped to write, and the sort of thing that would lead to my promotion. And then after that would come the Pulitzer, the continuing stream of hard hitting articles, a new apartment, and-

My stomach growled angrily at me.

I stared at it for a few seconds before realizing that in the course of doing my journalistic due, I had neglected food and drink. I was suddenly feeling ravenous and thirsty.

I called up Barry.

"Yo, Barry."

"Sup, Sam. What's up now?"

"You wanna meet me at the Roaring Dragon at 6:30? I feel like getting a bite to eat, but I gotta drop something off first."

"Something?"

"You'll know tomorrow."

Barry sighed. "Yeah, sure, dude. Tab's on you, though."

I rolled my eyes. Of course.

"Jerk." I pretended to sound petulant.

Barry chuckled. "Bitch."

We hung up on each other. It was settled, then.

I took a shower and headed out with my article, determination following my footsteps.

* * *

As predicted, my article made quite the ripple in Shang Tu when it was published in the newspaper tomorrow. However, while I knew I had something good, I didn't expect people to still be talking about it after Golden Week was over. In retrospect, I suppose I should have expected this, but you have to understand. When you do work in the tabloids for a year, you get used to mediocrity and people not taking your articles seriously. This was the first time I had written an article that genuinely resonated to my readers. It felt odd, to say the least.

It felt even more odd when I walked into the Avalice Times at ten in the morning and literally everyone in the tabloids section and a few people from the 'big news' section were clapping as soon as I came in. Among these faces were Judith and Barry. I felt honored and highly embarrassed, but recognition felt good.

It felt even better when Ms. Sibyl welcomed me and asked to see me in her office personally.

My palms were sweating and several internal monologues were running through my head simultaneously. Knowing what I had written, this could've been the start of my career. Maybe the promotion would come with a billion benefits; a personal office as opposed to an open desk, a massively inflated salary. Maybe I'd even get an award for 'Best Amateur Article' or something like that.

Damn. It really does feel good to be on top of things.

I stepped out of Sibyl's office, feeling highly chagrined.

I walked over to my desk. It was waiting for me in all its nostalgic glory. I felt a sense of foreboding as I got to work.

Judy and Barry came around shortly, smiles on their faces.

These smiles were wiped off very quickly.

Barry walked over. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?"

I grinned. "I got promoted, man."

Barry looked at my desk. It was in the process of getting cleared out, with a big box sitting just under it. Papers, folders, my employee card and several other implements were sitting inside the box.

Barry raised an eyebrow. "Ya know, from where I'm standing, it looks less like you got promoted and more like you're packing up and getting ready to leave."

I shrugged. "It is what it is."

Judy looked at me quizzically. "What happened inside that office, Sam? You're acting weird all of a sudden."

"Well, for all intents and purposes, I technically got promoted to a higher position. I'm just not working at the Avalice Times anymore."

Barry and Judy shared a look.

"...so you got transferred to a different news publication?" Judy sounded confused.

"Not exactly. As it turns out, freelance journalism better fits my talents than a higher position in the Avalice Times."

"Jeez, Sam," Barry was saying. "I was expecting a lot of things when I saw you walk into that office, like maybe you'd get to hang with the big dogs like Judy and I. But this? That's a curveball if I ever saw one. You gonna be alright?"

I chuckled. "Yeah, sure, why not?"

Barry chuckled as well. "Well, it was nice hanging with you in the Avalice Times. Whatever happens, if you need me, give me a call anytime. I'll be there."

"Gotcha."

Barry walked closer and we slapped hands together, then did a bro hug. We waited several beats and then broke the intimacy with two claps on the shoulder. He grinned at me.

"Yo, I'll be getting back to work. Take care of yourself, okay?"

I said nothing, I just waved.

Judith was still standing there.

I suddenly felt self-conscious. I broke out in a fit of stammering, trying to figure out what to say.

Judith laughed lightly.

"You know, I always found it funny how you tried to pretend you were cool and suave, but that dorky side of yours always comes out sooner or later."

I smiled awkwardly. "Thanks?"

"And I always found it odd that we've been working in the same publication for months and we've only just got to really know each other yesterday. I want to fix that."

She snatched a piece of paper from the box and quickly scribbled down something, then showed it to me. It was her number.

"Call me anytime."

I was incredulous, as you might have figured out.

"Well, uh. It's just that, well, I'm a bit new to this relationship thing."

Judy laughed again. "Start simple, Sam. I'm not a complicated woman. Coffee works, or a movie.."

"Right. Sure."

She patted me on the shoulder. "I have to get back to work as well. Good luck with the freelance journalism thing. I'm sure you'll do well."

I watched her go. And then I looked at her number yet again.

God damn.

* * *

As I finally cleared out my desk and went home around 4 PM, I replayed the conversation that Sibyl and I had.

First, the obligatory polite gestures before she invited me to sit.

Then the rest of it came out.

"I read your article last week, Sam."

I nodded impatiently. I was waiting for the inevitable point in the conversation where she would say that I was promoted and tell me when I would start.

"It was extremely good. Much, much better than anything I've seen from you previously. How long did it take you to write it?"

"Uh, it took about three days in all."

Sibyl's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at me over her glasses. "Indeed? That is very impressive, considering the information contained in this article. Most of the people I have employed in investigative journalism would gladly go to untold lengths to get even a fraction of what you've written here."

I smiled and said nothing.

"But..."

The smile was wearing thin on my face. A 'but' has never signified anything good in my experience.

"But well, in light of what I have seen from you, I feel that you are highly overqualified, and quite frankly a potential political risk on top of that. Now, I am not saying that I do not appreciate your significant improvement; you've exceeded my expectations in that regard. But in the long term, I suspect that your apparent penchant for getting into trouble will also cause potential blowback to the Avalice Times. And even if that wasn't true, your article alone will attract attention from other news publications, and it simply is not within my rights to keep you here, even if you wish to stay and do work for the Avalice Times."

...okay, that was not what I had expected at all.

"Having said all of that, I feel that your talents would be better applied to freelance journalism. You can still continue as you are, but you have the ability to set and work your own hours at whichever publications you choose, including the Avalice Times, and are free to write about whatever comes to mind. Unofficially, you can consider this a promotion. But officially, you are no longer an employee of the Avalice Times."

I struggled to find something to say to that. But the words weren't coming.

"Okay," was all I could manage.

Sibyl smiled sadly.

"Don't look so defeated, Samuel Swift."

She opened a drawer, rummaging around for something. In seconds, I was looking at a check, and I gaped at the amount.

Two million crystals, well over six times what I made in a year.

"That happens to be your severance pay, Mr. Swift. Do with it as you will."

"Thank you, Ms. Sibyl."

Sibyl scoffed lightly. "I told you before. It's just Sibyl."

"Oh, right. Well, if that's all, I suppose I should clear out my desk and everything."

I stood up to shake her hand. It was less noticeably scaly, but just as warm as it had been before.

I turned to leave.

"Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"I told you that you would get there someday. I wish you the best of luck with your position."

I laughed lightly.

"Yeah. Of course. Thanks for everything, Sibyl."

I smiled at the memory as I stared at the check once again. All things considered, it was a pretty amicable parting. Granted, all of this was way out of left field, but it didn't feel as bitter as it could have. I folded my check once again as I left my car and went up to my apartment.

Tomorrow, I would cash in my check and do things with the money. But for now, I had only one thing on my mind.

I called up Judy's number.

"Hi, Judy. This is Sam."

"Oh! Hi, Sam. How are you?"

"I'm fine. You?"

"I'm doing great."

"Say, about that thing you said before. I was mulling it over, and I'm thinking. How about we go out to eat at the Roaring Dragon? Tab's on me."

"Of course. But I think I'd rather split the tab on that. What time is good for you?"

I suppressed a laugh of glee at not having to pay the entire tab.

"Six sounds good for me."

"Alright. I'll be there."

"Sweet. See you later."

"Bye, Sam."

She hung up. I smiled as I put the phone back into its receiver.

I sat back, feeling content with myself. Tonight was going to be a good night.

Assuming, of course, that I didn't get rudely interrupted by anyone tonight. Knowing my luck, I'd get ganked by Spade, Mayor Zao, some random flunky, or even Carol.

But hey.

It's a brave new world, Sammy boy.


End file.
